The many fates of Anakin Skywalker
by Haxong
Summary: This is a chose your own adventure style fanfiction. You take the place of Anakin Skywalker and live through the events of EP3. You can fall or you can remain on the light side, you can succeed or you can fail, you can even die... in a heroic way or of old age or blown up by rebels or pathetically offscreen. It's your choice!
1. The Beginning, A-D

Hello everyone! Welcome to a different kind of fanfiction, namely a chose-your-own-adventure style one!

In this story you take the place of Anakin Skywalker. It starts on the day the Chancellor is captured and goes on to describe your fall… or your adherence to the light side in the face of temptation. Because it's your choice how the story goes! In case you've never read something like this, here is how it works!

At the end of each section, you will be asked to make a decision. Then you skip ahead to whatever letter or number describes the outcome of your decision and so on and so forth. Some decisions don't matter all that much or loop around to the main story after some time, some decisions will have an impact only later (or not) and some decisions are so important they open up a whole new path.

There are a lot of endings and I don't expect you to find the paths to all of them but you might be dissatisfied with an ending and wonder if you can get a better one. Therefore, I've added a 'rating' of how well you did at each ending, depending on how the things that would logically matter to a Light Side or Dark Side Anakin respectably turn out. The highest DS score to be reached is 55, the highest LS score is 60. There are also more LS endings than DS but a lot of those are very similar.

You don't have to note down the exact path you followed in order to find your way back but it's important to note the death of any important characters, such as Obi-Wan, Sidious or Padmé.

Please note that the focus in this experiment is the fall (or avoidance of it) and thus, everything that happens after the twins are born is only summarized broadly to give you an idea what the consequences of your decisions might be. For the same reason, the narrative sometimes speeds up a bit, especially when you're following canon timeline because we all know how that goes.

I sincerely hope I have managed to keep track of all the paths but I changed around so much I might've missed something so if you find that a path you're following doesn't make sense, feels disjointed or puts you on another planet without any idea how you got there, please note down the order of sections, write it in a comment and I'll try to correct it.

Now without further delay, enjoy the adventure!

* * *

The first time you heard about the Dark Side of the Force in any significant way, it was from your Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, shortly after the death of Qui-Gon Jinn. After the initial rejection of the Council, you had almost given up on your short-lived dream of becoming a Jedi. Qui-Gon had promised to train you regardless but he died. Obi-Wan had promised to train you but from the little you'd seen of the young man till then, Obi-Wan had stuck you as a lot more eager to follow rules then Qui-Gon. Would he really go against the Council's wishes for you? You didn't even know each other! But in the end you had been admitted into the Jedi's ranks and Obi-Wan had become your Master. The evening after it was made official, you asked why they had changed their mind and why you hadn't been admitted right away. Obi-Wan had stumbled through an explanation of you still being so attached to your life before the Jedi. Most Jedi initiates have been brought to the temple too young to remember their parents.

You didn't understand. Your love for your mother was the one thing that always brought you cheer, something that was otherwise severely lacking for a slave on a desert planet. Obi-Wan had tried to explain that it wasn't having those attachments but the fear of losing them that was dangerous. Life as a Jedi could be dangerous, especially for those in the field. It was that fear that could lead one to the Dark Side.

Obi-Wan admitted to having felt the call of the Dark Side himself when he lost Qui-Gon and that it was only the teachings of the Jedi that allowed him to keep a clear head long enough to defeat his murderer.

That triggered a discussion about why the Dark Side was so dangerous. You generally knew fear to be a good thing. Being afraid meant being aware of danger and instinctively reacting in the best way to avoid a bad situation. The importance, according to the Jedi, lays in the way someone deals with their fears. A Jedi is brave, he faces his fear instead of running away. A Jedi keeps his calm, he thinks about a solution instead of falling into panic. A Jedi is selfless, he will put himself in danger before he allows others to be hurt. A Jedi always has to see the bigger picture, he will not put the welfare of one being over the welfare of many. If a Jedi does not follow those rules, he is in danger of falling to the Dark Side, of being consumed by his fears.

"How do you avoid falling to the Dark Side?" you asked.

"You have to be mindful of your decisions. Life is but a series of important decision and there is always a wrong choice and a right choice. It isn't always clear which is which. Some decisions, even though they seem right at that time, can have unexpected bad consequences later on. But in some situations, the wrong choice is very obvious and if you take it, you will end up on a dark path. And if you make enough wrong choices and walk along that path for too long, the decisions stop being yours. Your path gets decided by the Dark Side."

As it turns out, Obi-Wan is right. You have made some wrong choices since then. The most obvious one has been your decision to murder every occupant of a Tusken raider camp on Tatooine, following your mother's brutal death. There were other less obvious wrong choices you'd made that didn't have any immediate bad consequences - not telling the Jedi about the Tusken for example or marrying Padmé in secret. But you still know them to be wrong and you know that you are dangerously close to the dark path, though it is probably still no closer than most Jedi get during the war.

"Life is a series of decisions. A Jedi always takes care to make the right one." Those were the words Obi-Wan spoke to you all those years ago and they come back to you now, on a starship taking a nose dive towards a populated planet, with the Chancellor of the Republic bound to his chair, Obi-Wan unconscious laying under some rubble and Count Dooku, leader of the Separatists and Sith Lord, literally unarmed, kneeling at your feet.

"Kill him, Anakin! Do it now!" Chancellor Palpatine shouts from where he sits, gazing at you almost hungrily. You have two lightsabers crossed in front of you, both of them coming dangerously close to Dooku's throat. One blue saber that you've painstakingly built together yourself in countless hours of meditation and one red saber, used by Dooku to kill dozens, possibly hundreds of people. You know you only have a split second to make a decision if you want to rescue the Chancellor and stop the ship from killing millions by crashing into the planet's surface and yet you hesitate, your Master's words from so long ago echoing in your ears. Your instincts tell you to kill Dooku. If you don't and he ends up surviving, the war will continue on endlessly, killing millions. And yet he is defeated and unarmed and mouthing the words 'Please don't' and where is the honor in killing a foe like that? Which one is the right decision? Which path shall you take?

**I'm gonna kill Dooku and cut his ugly head off! (Go to A) **

**I'm not gonna kill unarmed people! Even when they're totally evil! (Go to B)**

* * *

**A - You decided to kill Dooku.**

It is just a quick movement, a sliding of saber on saber, red meeting blue. The Count remains upright on his knees for a few seconds longer, staring at you with wide eyes. Then his body falls backwards and his head rolls across the floor like a ball a child has lost. You watch it as it tumbles away a few meters, loosing almost no blood until it comes to a halt.

"Good," Palpatine practically purrs, "good. Now free me! We have to leave this ship at once." His words shake you from your dazed state and you hurry over to the Chancellor, slicing through his binders and helping him to his feet. You let your gaze wander across the room where it eventually lands on the form of your Master. Obi-Wan still lies under the rubble. You hurry to him to check that he is still alive, which luckily, he is. Underneath you the ship shakes. You are running out of time.

"Leave him Anakin. We have to go!" You turn to the Chancellor, shocked.

"But I can't just leave him! He's still alive!"

"He is unconscious, he'll slow us down. If you take him with you, we might all die!" You look back at your Master.

**Obi-Wan is like a brother to me and I love him but I guess it's time to listen to that suspicious grandfather-figure of mine and leave him to die. (Go to C) **

**What, are you nuts?! I'm gonna save my precious Obi-Wan! (Go to D)**

* * *

**B - You decided to spare Dooku**

"No," you say at last and lower your lightsabers. "That is not the Jedi way." Dooku slumps a bit in relief while Palpatine now wears a scowl.

"Stay where you are", you warn the Count. "I can throw one of these faster than you can run." You hold up a lightsaber to make sure he understands what you say. Dooku gives a curt nod and you hurry to free Palpatine.

"Anakin," Palpatine urges you, "that is not wise. If he gets away-"

"Where should he go?" you snap back. "We're on a ship about to crash on Coruscant. Even if we all miraculously survive, this place will be crawling with troopers soon."

"Tell that to him" the Chancellor mutters and nods behind you. You turn around after slicing through Palpatine's bindings. Dooku has gotten to his feet and yes, he has moved suspiciously in the direction of the door.

"I require medical attention," the Count says stiffly, holding up his arm stumps.

"In a minute," you say.

"Anakin, there is no time! The ship-"

"I know!" you snap, "I know. Just... let me think."

But you don't get around to ponder much over what to do. In that moment Dooku bolts to the side and though you have your lightsaber up immediately, ready to throw it, you are too slow. Dooku is gone.

"Well done," Palpatine says sarcastically. You blush in embarrassment.

"He won't get far with those wounds."

"I really do hope you are right, my friend. Now let us go, quick."

You nod, then let your gaze wander across the room where it eventually lands on the form of your Master. Obi-Wan still lays under the rubble. You hurry to him to check that he is still alive, which luckily, he is. Underneath you the ship shakes. You are running out of time.

"Leave him Anakin. We have to go!" You turn to the Chancellor, shocked.

"But I can't just leave him! He's still alive!"

"He is unconscious, he'll slow us down. If you take him with you, we might all die!" You look back at your Master.

**Obi-Wan is like a brother to me and I love him but I guess it's time to listen to that suspicious grandfather-figure of mine and leave him to die. (Go to C)**

**What, are you nuts?! I'm gonna save my precious Obi-Wan! (Go to D)**

* * *

**C - You decided to leave Obi-Wan to die (you sicko)**

Palpatine is right. If you take Obi-Wan with you, you might lose not one but two friends. Your heart screams at the mere idea of leaving your Master behind - but isn't that what Obi-Wan himself would want? You can't endanger the Chancellor's life because you want to save a fellow Jedi. Even if said Jedi is your Master and a war hero. The Chancellor is more important.

It is the hardest choice you've ever had to make but you turn around and give Palpatine a curt nod. "Let's go."

What happens after that is a blur in your memory. There is a lot of running, a lot of near-misses. At some point you make it to a control center where you manage to do the impossible and crash land the dreadnought into Coruscant, avoiding any densely inhabited areas. But the missing half of the ship burns up in the atmosphere and it's all you can do to flee the scene before fire spreads through yours as well. Any hope of maybe going back and getting Obi-Wan dies in those flames. Your Master is dead. You feel it in the Force, the violent snap of a bond that has survived years of war and blood. Dooku is dead too, that is something you suppose. Even without the blow of your lightsaber, he would've died in those flames at the latest. A Sith Lord and a Jedi Master, sharing the same fiery grave.

You feel a hand on your shoulder and turn around, seeing Palpatine smile at you. He looks grateful, yet full of sympathy. "You did the right thing, Anakin. This was a great victory. You should be proud of yourself."

"Yes," you say automatically, though your heart isn't in it.

**Go to E.**

* * *

**D - You decided to rescue Obi-Wan**

"I can't let him die," you say stubbornly. You grab Obi-Wan's arm and sling it over your shoulder. The added weight is hindering you a lot but damn it, you'll just have to manage.

What happens after that is a blur in your memory. There is a lot of running, a lot of near-misses. Luckily Obi-Wan wakes up as you are half way across to the control center. With him as a co-pilot you manage to do the impossible and crash land the dreadnought into Coruscant, avoiding any densely inhabited areas. But the missing half of the ship burns up in the atmosphere and it is all you can do to flee the scene before fire spreads through yours as well. There are even a couple of explosions. And yet the heat from the burning ship almost feels good to you, once you are at a safe distance. It is as if a dark veil is lifted from you. You are still alive. Palpatine is still alive - Obi-Wan is still alive. Only Dooku is dead. Even without the blow of your lightsaber, he would've died in those flames at the latest.

You feel a hand on your shoulder and turn around, seeing Obi-Wan smile at you. He looks calm as usual, yet full of pride at the same time. "You did great today, Anakin. The Separatists won't recover from that blow. I'm proud to have been your Master."

"Yes," you say automatically, a grin slowly finding its way on your face. "That is what I'd call a victory."

**Go to E.**


	2. The Crossing: E-N

**E: You managed to land the ship. (Well, you are a Skywalker after all.)**

The mission is deemed a success. Palpatine thanks you formally for rescuing him. A war council will be called together to talk about how Dooku's death will influence the near future but for now you have a day full of smiling for the camera and accepting congratulations ahead of you. To be honest though, you are very distracted the entire time. You are tired of war, of all the bloodshed and death and you just want to rest for a while. In the evening though there comes a very nice surprise for you - Padmé visits you in the temple and she's got amazing news. Really ill-timed news that are potentially devastating for your Jedi career but you don't say that out loud. It's the last thing she needs to hear, what with how worried she already looks. So you grin and kiss her and tell her that everything will be alright and you take her to her apartment and spend the night, glad to forget about the mission for a few hours. Until you wake up covered in sweat, the screams and pleas of your dying wife ringing in your ears. The dream was so real you are immediately reminded of the vision you had shortly before your mother died. There is no question about the meaning of this warning from the Force - Padmé is going to die giving birth to the child growing in her.

You can't find anymore sleep that night. You woke Padmé up and when you tell her what's going to happen she brushes off your concerns, insisting it was only a dream. But you know it wasn't. You know it's going to happen, unless you do something about it. But what can you do?

**The Jedi have to know what to do and the only Jedi I trust is Obi-Wan. I have to tell him about the vision. (Only available if Obi-Wan is still alive, go to F) **

**The temple archives have the largest collection of knowledge about everything to do with the Force and visions. I'm going to do some research. (Go to G)**

**Palpatine will know what to do. The Jedi failed me the last time when I had a vision. Now I need an outside perspective. (Go to H)**

* * *

**F: You decided to tell Obi-Wan about your vision. (Was that a smart idea?)**

After your successful mission you do get a few days of leave and so does Obi-Wan. That's why it's not hard to find him and of course your old Master is always willing to talk to you so you meet him in his quarters over tea.

"Last night I had a dream," you begin, "a very unsettling dream. A friend of mine was in it and they were in terrible pain. I think they might be dying. I'm sure it's a warning, a vision the Force sent me but I don't know what to do about it."

"Hm," Obi-Wan makes, scowling a bit as he thinks about your words. "Is this dream about a mission of some sort? Do you see surroundings or other indicators for a place or timeframe?"

"No," you have to admit. "It was kinda vague and fuzzy. I don't know where. It has to be soon because the person didn't look much older than now though. And I doubt it's a mission."

"Well it's not much of a warning if you don't have any details. Are you sure that this isn't just a normal dream? Anxiety can play tricks on the mind."

"It's not a dream," you insist, irritated. "And it's detailed enough that I know it's not about preventing a murder or something. This is... This isn't something I could stop, even if I knew exactly when and where. But maybe there is something... some knowledge or technique of the Force that can... you know... stabilize people who are hurt or diseased or just old, something to keep them going?"

Obi-Wan's scowl deepens. "Anakin, you have to remember that death is a part of the natural order of things. If you foresee an accident you can prevent it from happening. If you know someone to have a disease you can search for a cure. But everyone dies eventually. That is the way of life. It is sad but it is still natural. If it was indeed a vision you had and not a dream, which is by no means certain and there really have been no clues as to how to prevent it, then maybe the Force is telling you to prepare yourself. Not to prevent a death from happening but to look at your own feelings and accept that a friend might not always be at your side." Obi-Wan lays one hand on your shoulder, trying to comfort you. "I did notice you avoided telling me who you saw or what the cause of death is in that dream... I sincerely hope it isn't me. But if it is and there is no way for me to avoid such a fate then I would accept that it is my time and so should you."

You shake off his hand, suddenly angry. Is Obi-Wan seriously telling you to just let Padmé die!? Of course he doesn't know it is Padmé... He isn't even convinced that it is a real vision. But you know because you remember the vision you had about your mother. It was just as fuzzy but you knew it would be soon, you knew it would be on Tatooine and if you had gone to find her just a few days earlier, you might've been able to save her.

You never told Obi-Wan about that vision. Maybe if you explain, he would take you more seriously. But then you would have to tell him how you knew you could've saved your mother. You might have to tell him... about the Tusken... Or you could just pretend you agreed with him and go search for the knowledge you needed in the archives.

**The temple archives have the largest collection of knowledge about everything to do with the Force and visions. I'm going to do some research. (Go to G)**

**It's time to come clean. I'm going to tell Obi-Wan all about Tatooine... even if it means I'm gonna end up in jail for it. (Go to I)**

* * *

**G: You do some research in the temple archives.**

There has to be some way to save Padmé. You're the Chosen One, everyone says so! If anyone has the power to do it, it would be you. You don't have any grand capabilities as a healer but you know there are ways to utilize the Force in such a way and the temple archives should hold records of it.

Decision made you bury yourself in holo discs, not even caring all that much if you leave a data trail. The librarian glances at you suspiciously a few times but you don't care. You read all you can on Force healing, birthing complications and whatever else you can think of. But most of what you find only deals with open wounds or disease and you don't think that's the problem here. Besides, it isn't just about Padmé. You don't want to lose a loved one ever again. What you need is some way to... to feed life force to a weakened person or to anchor their soul to the mortal realm so they can't slip away. But you don't find any detailed instruction or even just description of such a thing in any of the discs available to you. Thus more than once you glance at the closed doors behind which the restricted section lies, the one only accessible to Masters. You can well imagine the flurry of questions you'd expose yourself to if you asked any Master for permission to go there and without a key and with the librarian already watching you like this, there's no chance you can get in without it.

You go to the library several days in a row and get more frustrated and bitter as you go. At last you have to admit that you won't find anything in here. You need to talk to somebody. You need help.

**Go to H.**

* * *

**H: You go to Palpatine. **

The next morning you find yourself in Palpatine's office. You're still amazed that he even has time for you. Or rather that he makes time. Being the Chancellor of the Republic his timetable has to be pretty full and yet he somehow always manages to squeeze you in when you come to him. Sometimes you speak about the war; he values your strategic opinion and perspective. Sometimes you speak about the Jedi and their ability on the battlefield, how to best utilize them. Sometimes you just talk, about history, politics, anecdotes from your younger years, of your fears of not meeting expectations. Speaking with Palpatine usually leaves you relieved and confident in your own opinions, many of which the Chancellor shares. It's not a surprise that you would decide to tell him about your vision. You don't go into much detail of course, just that you saw someone close to you dying and that you couldn't count on the Jedi to help you prevent it.

"I don't know what to do, Chancellor," you admit. "I'm sick of so many people dying around me... and I'm terrified it'll happen again."

"Oh my dear boy," Palpatine says soothingly. "You will never be rid of that fear unless you distance yourself from people in general and that is of course not a desirable path to take. Many soldiers chose to take that path, especially with a war going on but it takes a special kind of strength to hold onto your bonds even as the entire galaxy is in such danger. What I mean to say is, you are strong, Anakin. Strong enough to protect those you care about, I'm sure. You saved me after all." He smiles as if he's made a joke and your heart feels just a little bit lighter.

"I can't protect this person though, not from everything. Not from this. I know that I could if I just knew how."

"This person you worry about, are they being injured?"

You hesitate. "Well, not directly. Not in a way that I can just go and prevent an attack or an accident, anyway," you say, suspecting where he is going with this.

"Then it is a disease? Could the problem be solved by bringing them to a hospital in time?"

"Maybe... I don't know. In the vision it looked like they already were at a hospital so evidently, that didn't help."

"Ah, I understand. That is why you are looking to the mysterious Force for a solution."

"I am just a knight. If the Jedi do know anything that could help me, I could only access such knowledge with a Master's permission. But the Masters would only warn me of growing too attached to a single person."

"They would hinder your curiosity, your desire to learn more about the most noble art of healing simply because of their own antique traditions?" Palpatine asks with a hint of incredulity. "That does not sound very wise."

"Yet that is what they do," you answer sullenly.

"So you cannot ask further question without the backing of a Master... or if you were a Master yourself. An honor that I personally think you are more than ready for."

You smile a bit but there's no real joy in the gesture. "The Council doesn't think so."

"Well, you did just defeat Count Dooku and saved my humble self, all while preventing the death of thousands when you landed the Confederacy ship safely. Let me see if I can't do anything about the Council's opinion."

"You would do that?" you ask, barely allowing yourself to hope.

"Of course Anakin. For you I would."

You know you should reject his offer. Your friendship with the Chancellor shouldn't influence your career as a Jedi. Taking advantage of that is not very honorable. On the other hand, that was a pretty important mission that you mastered pretty much all by yourself. And if the title of Master could help you gain knowledge on how to help Padmé, there really isn't anything to say except... "Thank you, Chancellor."

**Go to K.**

* * *

**I: You decided to tell Obi-Wan about what happened on Tatooine**

"You don't understand," you huff, "I had that exact same kind of vision before." Then you launch into your tale. Obi-Wan doesn't seem that surprised, he knows you were on Tatooine with Padmé as he had to call you there on a mission. But he never knew that your mother died and his condolences sound sincere. His sympathy makes your heart ache, old wounds getting ripped open again. You haven't planned for it but now you feel like you have to tell him everything, if just to get that ugly secret off your chest at last. What's the worst that could happen anyway? Tatooine is outside of any law, it's not like you could be dragged in front of a court for this. They could throw you out of the Jedi order but hey, at least then you'd have time for Padmé.

So you spill it all, how you found her terribly brutalized and how after she died in your arms your anger just took over completely. You can't even remember most of it but you know that you left nobody alive. You avoid looking into Obi-Wan's eyes the entire time. Your Master has gone very silent at your side.

"And I... I don't know what I'd do if something like that happened a second time," you say, close to tears now. "I can't lose another person I care about, I just can't. I wouldn't be able to escape that... that darkness inside of me. Obi-Wan, I need your help."

You look up at last and Obi-Wan's face is white as a sheet, his lips pressed together to almost nothing. When he speaks at last his voice is very quiet. "First of all, I want to thank you that you told me about this. Even if it came a little late. Carrying such secrets with you is never a good way to deal with them. But Anakin, you were almost a child. So much has happened since then. The war, as much as I despise it, made you grow into a man far stronger than the Padawan you used to be. You have to believe in yourself. Loss is always something hard to deal with but you can't let it destroy you. Losing your mother must've been terrible for you. She was your family, she was innocent and she was helpless. But the friends you have here, the Jedi, we all have made our vows to protect, to fight and to die if necessary. The clones are soldiers ready to die to accomplish any missions. Even the politicians you know and like, like Palpatine or Senaor Amidala, they serve their planet and the Republic and their work is dangerous. They know what they are dealing with and they are ready for it. You have to be too."

You can barely believe it. Obi-Wan still doesn't get it! You have half a mind to just leave, brush him off like he does with you. How could you possibly make him understand? There seems to be no way... unless... If you tell him that it's Padmé, that she is family to you like your mother was because you're freaking married alright, and if you tell him that Padmé needs to live not because she's a Senator but because the baby is going to need her, maybe then he'll finally get what you're trying to say and stop suggesting you should let people die!

**It's all or nothing. He should know about my relationship with Padmé. (Go to J)**

**Screw Obi-Wan, Palpatine would understand me. At least he's not a Jedi. I should ask him for advice. (Go to H)**

* * *

**J: Tell Obi-Wan about your relationship with Padmé.**

"You don't understand, Obi-Wan. In my vision, I saw Padmé dying in… in childbirth. And it's going to happen soon. She's pregnant. I can't prevent her giving birth and she can't die from that, it's not fair. It's got nothing to do with the war and she needs to be there to be a mother."

"Padmé... is pregnant? Are you sure of that? She is not in any relationship and if she's been gaining weight, it could just be stress from the war..."

But you have enough, you grab Obi-Wan by his shoulders and say very clearly: "Yes Obi-Wan I am bloody sure. Padmé and I have been married for three years, she told me she's pregnant herself and I felt the life growing in her, a powerful life, a life I helped to create. I had a vision of my wife dying and possibly my child too, now stop telling me that I have to get used to loss and help me save my family!"

For once, Obi-Wan doesn't know what to say. In fact, he's silent for almost a minute, just staring at you in shock. Finally he clears his throat and takes a step away from you.

"Well, uh, I have to say... first of all, congratulations, I guess, for becoming a father... and uh, I guess you know how the Council will think about that so I don't have to tell you, though I will have to tell them, eventually I mean but you hardly need their suspicion now so I suppose it can wait a bit and..." He struggles with the words, apparently losing all of his eloquence the more he tries to think of what to say. At last he takes a deep breath and continues: "If Padmé is having a… a baby, and a powerful Force sensitive at that and if being in a normal hospital isn't enough, I suppose she would be best taken care of in the medical ward of the temple. The healers there might not deal with a lot of... of births, on a regular basis I mean but they have experience dealing with young children and healing wounds, stopping bleeding and such and the Force can give great insights into what is wrong with a patient so... yeah. If you are worried, you could bring her there once it's time. I can talk to some people to make sure she's admitted."

"That's not enough," you insist. "What if there's no time to get her to the temple? What then?"

Obi-Wan sighs. "Anakin, I don't know what you want me to say. If you are really that convinced that there's danger ahead, I can try to talk to the Council about giving you an extended leave from the war until the... until it's over. If you spend that time furthering your education by watching the healers perform their duties and ask a bunch of oddly specific questions, I doubt anyone would call you out on it until after you would be scheduled for your next mission... If there are any more..."

"You think that would help? I could learn enough about healing there to save Padmé?"

"From dying in childbirth? I think so, yes. It might be a good idea anyway to have some better first aid skills, at least you'd be able to keep a comrade alive long enough for professional help to arrive. That is what I would suggest you tell the healers, in any case."

You grab Obi-Wan in a hug, muttering thank you's.

"Oh Anakin... I don't know what you were thinking... Actually I doubt you were thinking at all, not with your head at least..."

"I should've told you a lot sooner," you say. "I… I'm sorry I doubted you. I thought for sure you'd sell me out to the Council immediately."

Obi-Wan looks very uncomfortable. "Actually, I'm quite glad you gave me as much plausible deniability as you did. Looking back, I deliberately ignored quite a few hints. Just… as long as you're aware that this can't go on for much longer."

"I'll speak to the Council myself if I have to. After Padmé is safe," you promise.

You take your leave from your old Master, finally with a new hope. Obi-Wan holds word, you get an extended leave and have plenty of time to visits the healers. They are glad for a volunteer to help out and you've never been a more attentive student in all your life. The visions continues to repeat in your nightmares but it only makes you determined to learn more. Between spending time with Padmé on the evenings and doing something you feel is productive as well as not constantly hearing about the war, it actually is a happy time for you, more then you've experienced in years. Maybe there is hope for a better time yet. As a family.

**Go to K.**

* * *

**K: Timeskip. **

_(Author's note: Everyone has to go through this one no matter their choices before. From here on out, different paths will open up so if you want to play around with endings, here's a good spot to pick up the story from.)_

The following days pass in a blur. Padmé becomes noticeably rounder. You continue to wake up in sweat, plagued by visions. One day you are called in front of the Council and for a moment you think your secret's been found out. They know about your marriage and are going to throw you out of the order. You haven't exactly been subtle with the way you sneak out every night to meet her. But it's not about Padmé. Instead they tell you the Chancellor has appointed you as his personal representative on the Council. There isn't much they can do against that, however they refuse to grant you the title of Master that is normally held by every Council member. As you hear of this your anger is hard to contain. You're sure that Palpatine only wanted the best for you but now it looks to everyone as if he's favoring you, putting trust in you that the Council finds unwarranted. What should've been a reward, they turned into an offence. You are beyond disappointed. With the title of Master, there would've been so many more resources available to you, like access to the restricted part of the temple archives. You could've used that to further your knowledge of the Force and how to use it to help Padmé. Yet that promotion now seems to be in the distant future only.

Angry with the Council and with yourself for getting your hopes up, you leave the Council chambers - but the Masters are not done yet. The next mission you receive is one you initially can't even believe they would give you - you are to report Palpatine's doings to them. You are to spy on one of the only two people outside of the order you consider friends, family even. On top of that, they seem to be thinking that that is what Palpatine wants you to do to the Jedi by appointing you to the Council - and they want you to run all information you might put in a report for the Chancellor by Mace Windu first. They want to turn you into a freaking double agent.

Now you know that war sometimes calls for subtlety and that the information spies deliver can sometimes mean the difference between victory and failure. But you have always been upfront about your intentions and Palpatine is hardly the enemy. Sometimes you think he's the only one who knows how to handle the galaxy. The Jedi should be lucky that they have him as Chancellor, not be suspicious of his long reign.

But you bite your tongue and say nothing. Palpatine is innocent and as such you won't have anything of interest to report to the Council anyway. As the Chancellor's representative, you are meant to ease communications between the two parties so of course you'll tell them about Palpatine's decisions... if they concern the Jedi. That is in the job description after all. And also, maybe you should stop complaining about the Jedi so much to Palpatine. He might get the wrong impression. Your personal grievances with them have nothing to do with the order's usefulness to the Republic after all.

It is a couple of days and a few half-hearting reports later that you are called to the Chancellor. The message is a bit confusing as he wishes you to meet him at the opera. Maybe paranoia has taken a hold of your old friend if he no longer wishes to discuss important business in his own office. If he just wanted to invite you to the event as a friend, he could've told you a bit more in advance after all. The way it is you have to hurry to get there before the doors close for the show and even then you miss the beginning.

Neither you, nor seemingly the Chancellor pay much attention to the show going on. Palpatine starts out by informing you that General Grivious has been found and that he expects you to get the mission to hunt him down soon. However then he sends away whatever underlings he has sitting near him and you know now he's getting to the real reason he called you here.

"Anakin, you know I'm not able to rely on the Jedi Council. If they haven't included you in their plot I assume they will soon."

"I'm not sure I understand," you answer hesitantly.

"You must sense what I have come to suspect. The Jedi Council want control of the Republic. They're planning to betray me."

You stare at him, not sure what to say. You know there is some mistrust between the Jedi and the Council. Particularly that the Jedi think there is a Sith Lord in the senate, maybe even amongst Palpatine's personal advisors. Can it be true after all? Is there someone whispering poisonous words into your old friend's ear?

"I don't think-," you start but Palpatine interrupts you: "Anakin, search your feelings. You know... don't you?"

You are reminded of your current mission. To report the Chancellor's actions to the Council. But Palpatine must be wrong... or is he?

"I know they don't trust you...," you admit carefully.

"All the senate, all the Republic, or democracy for that matter... There are so few people I can trust anymore," Palpatine muses.

"I have to admit, my trust in the masters has been shaken," you answer, if only to show you understand him.

"Why?" the Chancellor asks quietly. He gives you a look that says he knows more then he lets on. "They asked you to do something that made you feel dishonest, didn't they? They asked you to spy on me, didn't they?"

...How could he possibly know that?!

"I don't... I don't know what to say." If you confirm it the Chancellor might sanction the Jedi order, maybe even draw them back from the war. But lying... You hate lying to your friends.

"Remember back to your early teachings. All who gain power are afraid to lose it. Even the Jedi."

"The Jedi use their power for good."

"Good is a point of view, Anakin. The views of the Sith are similar in almost every way. Including their quest for greater power."

You shake your head, wondering how Palpatine even knows about the Sith. "The Sith rely on their passion for strength. They think in words only about themselves."

"And the Jedi don't?"

That brings you up short. Could it be true? The Jedi certainly fear losing power when it means giving that power to the Sith, that is for sure. "The Jedi are selfless. They only care about others."

Palpatine is silent for a moment, musing over your words while applause rings through the hall as the show progresses.

"Have you ever heard of the tragedy of Darth Plaguis the wise?" he asks at last.

"No."

"I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plaguis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life. He had such a knowledge of the Dark Side he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying."

Thoughts swirl around in your head. How has Palpatine come across such an obscure story? Why does he know so much about the Sith? Why does he tell you this? But above all... There was a way to keep people from dying using the Force!? This was exactly the kind of power you have searched for for weeks now. It is possible after all!

"He could actually save people from death?" you can't help but reconfirm.

"The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be... unnatural", Palpatine says quietly but with a glance at you that says he knows exactly how much you desire such power.

"What happened to him?"

"He became so powerful, all he was still afraid of was losing his power, which eventually of course he did. Unfortunately he told his apprentice everything he knew. Then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. Ironic, he could save others from death but not himself."

Your rational mind catches up to your racing heart, if a bit sluggishly. Palpatine doesn't seem like he wants to warn you of this power or the cost of it by pointing out it is a knowledge firmly on the Dark Side. Instead it almost seems like he is suggesting it as a possible route to take, knowing what he does about your personal history. But regardless of how much he mistrusts the Jedi, suggesting you use a power of the Dark Side to save the ones you love... That _does_ sound like something a Sith would say. You have to make sure thought that that is what he means. So you ask, pretending to Palpatine that you're open to the idea and pretending to yourself that you're not:

"Is it possible to learn this power?"

Palpatine turns to you slowly and says in an ominous voice: "Not from a Jedi."

And in that moment you know it. You know that the Council was right all along and yet they know nothing because the Sith Lord is not amongst the Chancellor's advisors. He sits right next to you.

You turn your gaze back to the show, heart racing. Even with that realization there's nothing you can do, not right now, in such an open setting. But you can go and report this conversation to the Council, as is your mission anyway. It would be the right thing to do.

Except... The power Palpatine spoke of does intrigue you. To manipulate the midichlorians is nothing you've ever thought of before. Maybe you could use this method to save Padmé and anyone else you care about. It might be worth looking into.

**Do the right thing and report the Chancellor to the Jedi Council. (Go to L)**

**You know, maybe you should research this dark power on your own first, maybe get some advice from Palpatine later. What could go wrong? (Go to M)**

* * *

**L: Do the right thing and report the Chancellor to the Jedi Council.**

You do your best to pretend to think deeply over the conversation you just had while the show continues - truthfully, you don't have to pretend much in that regard. As soon as you're dismissed though you make your way straight back to the Jedi temple. You're lucky to catch Mace Windu in a corridor and without bothering much with who might be around, you tell him of your conclusion - Palpatine is a Sith Lord. He and Dooku must've been playing the Republic the entire war long, no wonder you can't seem to get anywhere. For a moment you worry that the few hints the Chancellor gave you might not be enough. It is far from solid proof after all. But Mace is convinced immediately or maybe he was long since searching for an excuse to take action. Anyway he grabs whatever Jedi Master he comes across in the next five minutes and leaves to arrest Palpatine. You offer to go with him as well but are rebuked.

Left on your own you start pacing. On the one hand you really don't want to be pulled into the whole mess that you just started. With your official 'mission' over, you can finally do what you should've done ages ago, take Padmé and go take some nice, relaxing vacation so she can have the baby without problems. On the other hand, if the Jedi arrest Palpatine now, any chance to learn about the technique from Darth Plaguis will be gone. Also Mace was only able to assemble a handful of Masters. If their attempt to arrest the Sith Lord is not successful - even if they can defeat him but he survives - it would be an easy thing for him to discredit the Jedi, make it as if they are the ones betraying the Republic. And without proof of the opposite, who would disbelieve him? This could potentially end disastrous for the Jedi. Maybe you should intervene?

**Follow Mace (Go to N)**

**Naah, they'll be fiiiiiine... (Go to O)**

* * *

**M: Research the Dark Side alone**

Oh boy, is that really a good idea? ...is what you think as you leave the opera and make your way back to the temple. Palpatine's words continue to ring in your head as you bury yourself in the temple archives, reading as much as you can about midichlorians and how one could possibly influence them. At night you even steal yourself into the healer's wing to 'spend the patients some company', meaning you sit there in meditation and try to twist and tuck at their Force signature.

A few days pass like this. You barely sleep, your wife tells you you look awful (what does she know?) and you snap at her to leave you alone. You're running out of time. Padmé will have her baby soon. Are you ready for that? Maybe you should go back to Palpatine and ask for more help to understand this technique...

**I should confront Palpatine and ask for lessons in how to control the dark side. (Go to P)**

**I don't need anybody else, I will save Padmé myself through my new awesome Force powers! (Go to Q)**

* * *

**N: Follow Mace**

If the Jedi fail to arrest Palpatine, that could have disastrous consequences and they will need as much help as they can get to do it. You're masterful with the lightsaber and you have more than your fair share of combat experience. You should be a part of this. Nobody would disagree with you if you argue like that.

Decision made you make your way to the senate and practically run up to the Chancellor's office. As you open the door a grisly sight awaits you – the remains of around half a dozen Jedi Masters litter the floor, each of them dead and each of them having died rather quickly if the positions of their bodies are anything to go by. You actually have to step over them to get into the room. The only one who is still fighting is Mace Windu but even he has a hard time just defending himself against the onslaught of his enemy.

If anyone thought that just because Palpatine is old it means he's also weak, you would call them a fool. In fact you witness Palpatine perform acrobatics no human that age should be capable of performing and even though Mace is one of the deadliest Jedi with a lightsaber, he's clearly being pushed on the defensive. But when you enter it seems to startle the Sith Lord as his lightsaber gets knocked out of his hand. That is not the end of it. Mace makes to strike him again and Palpatine raises his hands and lets loose a stream of lightning.

"Anakin!" he calls out to you even as Mace starts to ward off the deadly rays with his lightsaber, "Anakin, help me! He's going to kill me!"  
"You are too dangerous to be allowed to live!" Mace growls out and you shiver as you remember that Palpatine used that same reasoning to make you kill Dooku. Mace is going to kill Palpatine. And if he does that, then any chance to get that knowledge of how Plaguis managed to save people from death will die with him.

**Help Mace kill the Sith (Go to R)**

**Help Palpatine kill the Jedi (Go to S)**


	3. A bad death O-W

**AN: **You know, if you can't access a section you're searching for, it will probably appear in a later chapter. I am doing this alphabetically, if you haven't noticed and after I run out of letters, I use numbers. ;-) This chapter has the first endings but they're... not very positive. Wait for the next chapter and search for another path if you don't like it :-)

* * *

**O: Don't follow Mace.**

You don't really like it but you decide to stay behind as the Masters go to deal with Palpatine. They are the strongest amongst the Jedi order and the Sith Lord they're facing is an old man. They don't need your help to deal with him and you have more important things to do anyway, namely look after Padmé.

So you leave the temple and head over to 500 Republica. Once there you tell your wife about what happened and also about your future plans:

"There is going to be a huge political backlash from the Jedi arresting the Chancellor and it's not something you should be dealing with in your state. Stress is bad for babies. So what do you think we just take some time off? We could go back to Varykino. You can have the baby there and your family can help us out if there are any problems."

"Ani, I can't just leave here if what you say is true. I am the senator of Naboo, how is it going to look if I leave just before the Chancellor, my predecessor, is getting arrested for treason?" she argues. "It could seriously damage the reputation of my planet."

"One of your handmaiden can play your part for a few weeks. You can give her commands via comm. Everybody is going to understand, giving the circumstances. Besides, once the baby is there I want everybody to know that we're married, that we're a family. Since I was the one to warn the Jedi about the Chancellor in the first place, they're hardly gonna suspect you. Please, Padmé. You know about the visions I've been having. I really worry about you. And about the baby. You don't want anything to happen to our son or daughter, do you?"

"Of course not..." Padmé muses. "Very well, we can leave the planet with my personal transport. Let me just contact my handmaiden."

With you urging her on, the journey is hurried along and one hour later you are sitting in a ship heading for Naboo. During your journey you are overcome by a horribly bad feeling. You are sure someone just died but you can't say who. You just know it's important.

It is only by the time you reach Varykino and are greeted by Padmé's family that you hear of the horrifying news. Bail Organa left a message for one of Padmé's handmaiden describing what happened on Coruscant: Chancellor Palpatine has declared the Jedi traitor to the newly formed Galactic Empire. The senate has voted democracy into an early grave and it's open season on all Jedi. Clone troopers across the whole galaxy are hunting down and killing their former generals.

Your ship is one of the last that land on Naboo before the planet, like so many others, gets blockaded. The Naberies agree to hide you of course and even thought you would like to go back or at least try to contact other Jedi and warn them, there is no way to do that without endangering Padmé. According to the new laws the Emperor passed, she could be executed for helping you.

Even knowing Palpatine is a Sith Lord, you are shocked that he would do something like this. It certainly explains the horribly feeling that overcame you on your journey here - it was the death of thousands of Jedi you felt as the attacks started.

So you stay at Varykino and with Padmé's handmaiden doubling for her, she is not even missed. You are probably just listed as one of the missing Jedi but as long as you don't show your face in public, you should be fine. At least the situation keeps Padmé from insisting to go back and try do something against the political situation for now she is worrying about your safety more than her own.

Two weeks pass. Despite the bad situation that hangs over you like a dark cloud, it is a relaxing stay. You make sure Padmé doesn't get to listen to any news but you keep yourself informed to make sure no danger is heading your way. At last the day arrives, Padmé is about to give birth. This is where all the secrecy surrounding your marriage comes to bite you in the behind because Padmé never went to any regular check-ups and so you all get surprised when it turns out she's having twins. Padmé's sister has helped to deliver the child of her cousin before so you thought you'd be alright. You can't very well call a doctor here when Padmé is supposed to be on Coruscant. You know immediately that this is it, there are complications during the birth just as you have seen. You fear your vision is about to come true.

**Well luckily I know how to help people with the Light Side of the Force! (Only of you chose the J path) (Go to 2)**

**Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, what do I do?! (Go to 3)**

* * *

**P: Ask Palpatine for instructions**

You realize you can't do this alone. The Jedi don't exactly offer a lot in terms of instructions when it comes to the Dark Side. If you want to learn it, you have to learn it from a master. And fortunately you have a strong suspicion were you might find one.

You make your way to the senate and as usual you're being lead straight to Palpatine without problems. At first you greet each other with a bit of small talk but eventually you come to the reason of your visit:

"I have thought about what you said the last time we met," you say quietly. "Particularly the legend you told me about. The power to save people from dying… it is something that would be incredibly useful, especially during these times. I am sick of so many people dying around me. But… I also found you are right."

"In what way, may I ask?"

You turn to look into the Chancellor's eyes. "It is not a power that can be learned from a Jedi. But you… You would know how to get this kind of power, don't you?"

"Only a Sith would know exactly how this technique worked," Palpatine says ominously.

"That does not answer my question."

The old man chuckles. "Are you asking me whether I'm a Sith Lord?"  
"At this point, I don't think I have to," you reply confidently. "If you do possess the knowledge I seek, I ask you to teach me."

Palpatine regards you for a moment in silence. At last he stands and says:

"I hope you realize what you are asking, my boy. This knowledge is forbidden by the Jedi. If you decide to become my student, you can no longer be a part of them. I fear for your life should they discover your ambition."

"I do realize that. To be honest, I have planned to leave the Jedi for some time now. I merely wanted to hold out because of the war."

"You have been my protégé for some time now and I do believe you realize more than anyone else in your order what needs to be done to bring peace and order to this galaxy. Still I must ask, are you ready to fully commit to this? It is only a matter of time before the Jedi rise up against me. I have suspected that they plan to make a grab for power soon for some time now. Are you ready to fight against your former comrades if it comes to that? Are you ready to put an end to corruption and useless bureaucracy even if it means denouncing the democracy you have sworn to protect? Are you ready to deliver justice, the final kind, instead of letting honest, hardworking people pay for overflowing prisons? The responsibility that comes with this decision is not a light one, Anakin. You have to be sure."

**You are sure. You will join Palpatine and become a Sith apprentice. (Go to T)**

**Maaaaaybe this wasn't such a good idea after all… (Go to U)**

* * *

**Q: Save Padmé yourself with dark side knowledge**

You're confident in your own ability. You are the most powerful Jedi since Yoda and your midichorian count is somewhere in the sky, you should be able to do this.

So for the next few days you pretty much ignore the Jedi and any calls they give you, instead staying by your wife, waiting for the baby to come. You become anxious and twitchy and resist all of Padmé's attempts to relax you. The visions become more frequent to the point where they wake you two or three times a night. At one point you just start substituting sleep for meditation.

Then comes the day. You're having a fight that got out of control. It started out with her telling you how much she worries about you, then you insisting she stop working at the senate as it's only stressful to her at this point, you go on about politics and suddenly she starts gasping and water runs down her tights.

The baby is early, too early. She starts moaning in pain and you take her to the bed and sent C3PO to get a doctor but you don't dare move her - the baby comes fast and every movement hurts Padmé.

The next couple of hours pass in a blur. A doctor arrives with a medi droid in tow but she does little more than tell Padmé to breathe and you're growing frustrated. So you take matters in your own hands and concentrate of the flow of the Force around your wife. There's not one but two tiny lives you can feel beside hers - she is having twins.

Towards the end Padmé is screaming bloody murder and she's cursing you, telling you to stop whatever you're doing but you know if you do she will die just like in your vision so you keep pressing on, trying to use the Force to widen her uterus to ease passage for the babies, trying to strengthen the little ones and your wife with your will alone.

Then the first baby comes out and it's suspiciously silent. The doctor takes it away to clean it but you don't hear any crying. You concentrate on Padmé, increasing your efforts but whatever you do, it's not working or at least it's not working the way you want it because Padmé's screams turn to moans, turn to whimpers, turn to sighs and then... nothing.

"Padmé? Padmé! No!" you shout and shake her, trying to make her breathe again because breathing is important but she doesn't listen to you, she doesn't hear you. Then the doctor returns, her face solemn just as the medi droid clinically declares the love of your life dead.

"Please you have to step aside," the doctor insists. "If I hurry I can still save at least one child."

"One child? What do you mean?" you ask.

"The boy she had is stillborn. I have to make a C-section now, with any luck at least the twin will have survived."

You stare at the doctor incomprehensibly. She pushes you aside and the medi-droid gets some blades from somewhere and they cut open your dead wife and you can't watch, you just can't. But all they pull out of the bloody corpse is another silent tiny body and whatever they do, they can't make your little daughter cry.

"They're dead," you whisper as if in trance when the doctor covers the infant with a white sheet. "They're all dead... and it is your fault! You let them die!" you shout towards the doctor.

"Please, I did everything I could-," she says but you don't listen to her and she doesn't speak, not for much longer anyway when you raise your hand and start pulling the Force together around her throat. The medi-droid makes a distressed sound just before you destroy it by throwing it against the next wall and the doctor soon follows, blood from her head mixing with Padmé's that's dripping from the bed sheets.

You leave the apartment, practically fleeing. You don't know where you're going, you just run, tears in your eyes.

At some point - hours later, maybe - you think about returning to the temple. You take a public service to the district, barely noticing the unusual high number of clone troopers around. When you step out onto the street you see smoke in the distance and blink - it's the Jedi temple. It is on fire. For a moment you just stand there, stupefied. Have the Separatists attacked? Then you slowly open yourself back up to the Force that had rung so painfully with the death of your loved ones - and you flinch back because you can feel so much more death now. Hundreds, no, thousands are dying, not just here but everywhere. The pain and anguish sends you to your knees.

That is how they find you, curled up in some dark alley near the temple, your hands still covered in blood. It's a group of troopers, rifles held ready.

"Sir? Sir! Show us your hands," one of them commands.

You look bleary-eyed, not fully understanding what is going on. One of the troopers steps forward.

"Are you a Jedi, sir?"

You stare at him for a long moment. Are you a Jedi? You've broken their code, you've ignored their plight and distanced yourself from them for months now. You have used the dark side, you have killed an innocent and you let your family die. A Jedi wouldn't do that. Can you still count yourself amongst them? Do you even want to?

**No (Go to V)**

**Yes (Go to W)**

* * *

**R: Help Mace kill the Sith**

You raise your lightsaber, purposely in a way that it's not clear until the last moment who you'll hit. Mace' eyes widen for a moment as he thinks the blue blade is coming at him but in the last second the swipe goes sideways and cleanly cuts off Palpatine's head.

The stream of purple lightning ebbs away and Mace stumbles back even as the Chancellor's head rolls in his direction as if to follow him.

You swallow a sense of desperation – what will happen to Padmé now that you killed your only source of knowledge on how to help her?

"Are you alright?" you ask Mace, trying hard not to let your inner conflict show on your face.

"A few burns, nothing more. The others though…" Mace looks behind him to the corpses of his fallen comrades.

"He was more dangerous than anyone could've known." Too dangerous to let him live.

"Are you alright?" Mace returns your earlier question. "I know the two of you have been close…"

You grimace a bit. "Evidently, whatever friendship I might've believed we had was just a fabrication on his side to try and lure me to the dark side. A betrayal like that… No, I'm not alright. But I will be, eventually."

Mace nods. "Maybe the council was wrong about you. Maybe you do have the wisdom of a Master, despite your young age. I know it is a position you have craved for a while now. We have lost so many Masters and today even members of our Council. Normally we would have a vote about this but I believe a field promotion is in order."

You bite your lib, hope and shame struggling within you. Accepting the Master's positon seems wrong. You almost did side with Palpatine and they don't even know about Padmé. Even if you did become a Master now, there probably isn't enough time to use your position to gather more knowledge about how to save Padmé and even if there were, you have a feeling they wouldn't allow you to use it on her unless you forsake your relationship with her.

Your time has run out and even though you're still rattled from your struggle with the dark side, it is already time to make another life changing decision. Will you accept the promotion?

**The Jedi are my true family. I will become a Master and learn to let go of my selfish love to Padmé. (Go to 4)**

**I could never give up Padmé and I promised to be with her when the war ended. It is time to be honest about my relationship with her, even if it means never becoming a Master. (Go to 5)**

* * *

**S: Help Palpatine kill the Jedi**

"Don't kill him! I need him!" you protest as Mace keeps reflecting lightning back at Palpatine, who screams in pain. You react without much thinking and swing your lightsaber. Mace' eyes widen and he stumbles back but that only means it's his hand that gets cut off, not his head. However, Palpatine lets out a mad cackle and suddenly he doesn't look so helpless anymore. In fact he lets out another stream of lightning and disarmed as he is Mace cannot protect himself. For a moment his body shakes and shivers as he is being electrocuted. Then Palpatine lifts him up with the Force and flings his body out of the window behind him. Stunned you watch as the Jedi Master is killed and then you sink on your knees as the realization hits you: If there was ever any chance of returning to the Jedi way, then you've just ruined it.

"What have I done?"

Palpatine slowly rises from his spot by the window. His face is hideously disfigured from the lightning.

"You're fulfilling our destiny, Anakin," he whispered, seemingly not the least bit bothered by the pain, though his voice sounds raw. "Become my apprentice. Learn to use the Dark Side of the Force."

You know there is no going back now. "I'll do whatever you ask."

"Gooood."

"Just teach me how to save Padmé's life. I can't live without here."

"To cheat death is a power only one has achieved. But if we work together, I know we can discover the secret."

You bow your head. "I pledge myself to your teachings."

"Good." Palpatine comes closer. His dark robes slide behind him as he moves up his hood to hide the damage of his face. "The Force is strong with you. A powerful Sith you will become. Henceforth you shall be known as Darth… Vader."

"Thank you my Master," you answer and the words pass your lips with surprising ease. But you feel none of the familiarity you shared with Obi-Wan as his student. This is much more reminiscent of the way you addressed Watto when you were a little boy. Maybe that is why it comes so easy to you. The Jedi made you believe you were free but the truth is, you just couldn't see the chains. There is no such pretending with Palpatine… no, Darth Sidious.

"Because the Council did not trust you, my young apprentice, I believe you are the only Jedi with no knowledge of their path and once the Jedi learn what has transpired here they will kill us along with all the senators." Sidious glances at you as if to test your reaction.

You stand up and make your face adopt a calm façade. "I agree. The Council's next move will be against the senate." And thus, against Padmé.

"Every single Jedi is now an enemy of the Republic," he continues.  
"I understand Master." It's rubbish of course but he is a Sith… and now, you suppose, so are you.

"We must move quickly. The Jedi are relentless. If they are not all destroyed it will be civil war without end. First I want you to go to the Jedi temple. We will catch them off-balance. Do what must be done, Lord Vader. Do not hesitate, show no mercy. Only then will you be strong enough in the Dark Side to save Padmé."

You swallow the dread rising in you. Kill all the Jedi? As in, all of them? Most combat-ready Jedi are out in the field. The majority of those that stay behind are children, Padawans and the injured.

"What about the other Jedi spread across the galaxy?" you ask. If you do have to turn against your former comrades, you'd much prefer facing those of equal skill.

"Their betrayal will be dealt with," Sidious brushes you off. "After you killed all the Jedi at the temple, go to the Mustafar System and wipe out Viceroy Gunray and the other separatist leaders. Once more the Sith will rule the galaxy. And we shall have peace."

**Follow Palpatine's instructions (If Obi-Wan is alive, go to X. If he's dead, go to Y.)**

**Refuse (Go to U)  
**

* * *

**T: Join Palpatine **

"I understand the consequences of my decision," you answer determined. "I want to learn."

"It makes me happy to hear you say that. There is much to be done, my friend. I will give you the knowledge you desire and more, so much more. But in order for me to really dedicate the time necessary to teach you, a few obstacles have to be removed first."

"The Jedi," you guess, dread and excitement struggling within you.

"Yes, the Jedi. I believe they suspect my true nature and it won't be long before they attack me. I plan to have this happen on my terms. All preparations have already been done. So I need you to go to the Jedi Council and tell them how you've found out I am a Sith. You are to lure them here under the pretense of arresting me and once they arrive, we will crush them together. The people who have disregarded you and your talents will pay for their short sight."

"It will be done, Chancellor," you promise.

"Soon, you will address me as Master," Palpatine replies. "If everything goes according to plan, I won't be a Chancellor for much longer."

You nod with a dark smile and taking his words as a dismissal, you turn around and leave the office. On the way back to the Jedi temple though, doubts begin to eat at your heart. Do you really want to lure the Jedi masters right into a trap all on the off chance to gain more power for yourself? Sure, it could save Padmé but it doesn't have to. Something could still go wrong. You have no guarantee that your actions will bring about the result you desire.

Even so you search for a council member – Yoda turns out to be off planet but you find Mace and tell him that Palpatine has made some strong insinuations towards you that made you realize he's actually a Sith Lord. Apparently Mace really did suspect something like that because he wastes no time in gathering up whatever Council members and Jedi Masters he can find.

And then he dares to order you to stay behind.

Fuming in barely concealed anger you stare at his back as he makes his way out of the temple. Your new Master clearly ordered you to be with the party that is to be ambushed. Staying behind is not an option!

**Go to N.**

* * *

**U: Refuse**

"You know, the way the Jedi speak about the Sith it's like you're a boogeyman they invented to keep little children in line," you mutter, staring at the ground. "I suppose I still held some hope that your persona as the benevolent Chancellor was not all a lie and that the Sith were merely misunderstood. All I really wanted was a way to save Padmé." Now you raise your head with new determination. "But it wasn't a lie. And you were never planning on giving me any knowledge, not without testing me. Not without making me do horrible things and turn against all the Jedi stand for. I can't do that. I won't do that."

"You disappoint me, Anakin," Palpatine drawls. "I really thought you were special. That you could see what this galaxy needs to thrive. But it seems I was wrong."

Without warning Palpatine quickly raises his hand and purple lightning shots out of his fingertips. It hits you right in the chest and you gasp as terrible pain floods your body.

"I had such high hopes for you, my boy," Palpatine says in mocking tone. "All those years that I mentored you, advised you, formed you – and this is how you thank me." His face contorts in a grimace of anger and he truly does look like a boogeyman now, you think, shortly before you pass out from the pain.

Palpatine makes sure you never wake again.

**END **

**Rating:**

Nope, you don't even get a rating. You died before you even hit the numbered endings! Go back and do something else.

* * *

**V: No, I'm not a Jedi.**

"No," you mutter, wiping away the trails of your tears with your sleeve. "No, I'm not a Jedi." Silently you add: "Not anymore."

"You have to come with us, Sir. Hand over your weapons."

You don't struggle as the clones take away the lightsaber you don't deserve and drag you to your feet.

You're escorted with blaster rifles pointed at your back. Out of the corner of your eye you see a clone fiddling with the comm at his wrist. They talk quietly amongst themselves as they confirm your identity and seem to receive new orders and the group changes direction. Twenty minutes later it seems like your new destination is the senate, more specifically the Chancellor's office. You don't know if you should be relieved or not.

They leave you alone with Palpatine, who stands with his back to you, staring out of the window and at the smoke slowly rising from the direction of the Jedi temple.

"Anakin," he says at last without looking at you. "I have to say I expected you to come to me sooner. It took you quite some time."

You say nothing, your thoughts filled with Padmé dying. You failed her and there's nothing you can do to bring her back. Sith Lord or no, the only power you might've desired from this man has no longer meaning to you. You don't even care much what happens to you now but Palpatine still won't look at you and it irks you that you called this man a friend for years while he was hiding his true self the entire time.

"You're a Sith Lord. You are Darth Sidious," you say out loud even if it doesn't matter anymore.

"And you are no longer a Jedi. Or are you?" Palpatine turns around at last. "I heard about the death of your wife. My condolences. She was a very promising young woman."

"She hated your politics and everything you stood for," you respond dully.

"I can respect a proper political opponent."

"Do you respect the Jedi as well?" You point outside to the smoke rising from the ruins. "Cause it doesn't look like you gave them a fair fight."

"There is no room for fairness in war, Anakin. Just hours ago a group of Jedi Masters stormed this office, lightsabers drawn and intent to kill me. And not just any Masters but members of the Council. I had no choice but to assume their entire order was behind their decision to oppose me. Do you mean to tell me I'm wrong?"

Well, considering Palpatine's nature... "No."

"Then did I not do the right thing in defending myself and the Republic from a hostile takeover?"

You scowl at the old man. "You've been in league with Count Dooku this entire time, haven't you? He's your apprentice. It is you who betrayed the Republic, not the Jedi."

"He was my apprentice," Palpatine corrected him. "He is dead now. In fact, I am looking to fill the position of my right hand anew. As to the war, say do you not believe there would be much less corruption if the galaxy were to be unified under a single strong leader? Was it such a better place before the war? The trade federation was free to do whatever they wanted because the senate was too weak to do anything against them. Maybe I have provoked a few select people. Maybe I have raised some funds or supplied some information to the right people. But the Separatists chose to start this war all on their own. I am powerful but I am not almighty. I couldn't have started this war and kept it aloft for so long if the people didn't want it. I merely gave them a little... push so they would show their true colors. Now we know who our enemies are and that makes it so much easier to deal with them."

Palpatine steps closer to you and for the first time you see a glint of yellow in his eyes.

"The reason I've had you brought here is very simple, Anakin. You can shape this new galaxy at my side... Or you can walk the path of your fellow Jedi. It is your choice."

**Come to the Dark side (Go to Z)**

**Refuse (Go to U)**

* * *

**W: I am a Jedi**

You look up at the clone trooper, the way he points the rifle at you. The little details come back to you now. It is not because of the blood on your hands that he's threatening you, you realize. It's because he sees your robes or maybe he recognizes you. The clones are supposed to work for the Jedi but for some reason, they have turned on them. And if you confirm that you're a Jedi, he will attack.

Which is exactly what you want.

"Yes," you say and straighten your back, hand on your hip where the lightsaber rests.

"Yes I bloody well am a Jedi!"

The clones shot without further warning but you're faster. You draw your lightsaber, reflect the shots and a moment later that's three clones less in the galaxy.

The noise is drawing attention. More troopers come your way and you decide they're welcome to take your life but you will have them work for it.

You hold out for a total of almost an entire hour. You kill over 120 clones by yourself, making your way to the temple. You don't care about rescuing anyone. You don't care if you're hurt. You only care that everything you love is dead and the only way you have any hope of seeing them again is by following their example.

Years later a small group of initiates that managed to escape the clone's notice in the distraction of your murderous rampage will paint a kinder image of you than you probably deserve, describing you as a hero who drew all the fire while they hid away behind the smoke till they found a way to sneak out. The galaxy will remember you as one of many Jedi knights who died defending the temple. The murder of one unfortunate doctor and the circumstances of Padmé Amidala's death will remain a mystery never to be solved.

You don't really care about all that though. The dead don't care about anything.

**END**

**Rating:**

Nope, you don't even get a rating. You died before you even hit the numbered endings! Go back and do something else.


	4. Following a Master X-2

**X: Follow Palpatine's instructions (Obi-Wan alive)**

You know that there is no going back for you. It is what you have to tell yourself time and time again with every Jedi you cut down. The problem is that killing them is so easy. With the 501st at your back, you storm the temple. You are on an official mission to execute the enemies of the Republic – this massacre, it's bloody legal! It would be funny if it wasn't so horrible.

Many of them are just children. Those that are old enough to know how to fight first see you as a fellow comrade, they recognize you as a hero and the surprise of having you turn on them makes it so easy to defeat them. Some of those that do manage to fight back actually have qualms about killing one of their own, turned traitor or not – that are those Jedi not suited for combat, who stayed behind because they're too pacifist. It's almost laughable.

That is not to say you face no resistance at all. The Jedi are not so stupid as to leave the temple completely undefended. But much time is wasted by knights searching for a Master or a Councilmember, not realizing most of those are lying dead in the Chancellor's office. There are only a handful who really face you with determination and it is then that you realize how much better you are than any of them. It is not just in raw Force power either. Even when you refrain from just crushing their throats with the Force, something nobody seems to be able to do much against, they can't match you in lightsaber combat. The Jedi put so much emphasis on keeping their students modest that they kept you from realizing just how good you are as a warrior. As a killer.

Soon you swat away all those Padawans and initiates because you crave a real challenge and you concentrate on that feeling and drink it in because it is the only way you can stand doing what you've been tasked to do.

At last it is over. You feel the Force empower you as it has never done before. It feels as if the life force of all those you killed today got added to your own. You feel invincible. If this is what the Dark Side feels like, it is no wonder the Jedi never managed to really wipe out the Sith. Power like this will always be rediscovered and once tasted, it is exhilarating.

You make your way over to Padmé's, wanting to make sure she's still alright and reassure her that you are not a victim of the uprising she will no doubt hear about in the news soon. She is worried of course and you regret that you can't tell her many details. You do mention that the Chancellor has sent you on a mission to Mustafar and that if all goes well, the war will be over soon.

Your journey to the volcanic planet on which the separatist leaders are hiding feels unbearably long. You are still craving for a challenge – you haven't even been injured during the storm of the temple and you feel no fatigue whatsoever. Seeing as you've barely slept during to the visions these past weeks, that is saying something.

The security the Separatists have here is laughably low. They must've counted on their location remaining a secret. Even more so, once you introduce yourself as Lord Vader they even let you into their midst willingly. They think you're here to protect them!

You knew that Sidious had to have worked with Dooku, as he must've been his previous apprentice. That means he worked with the Separatists the whole time. But seriously, working with a Sith Lord, didn't these cowardly creatures think one moment they might get betrayed?

Actually, you think while making short work of the Neimodians, does that mean that sooner or later Sidious will betray you too? Maybe you should work on a backup plan. After all, once Sidious has taught you how to use the Dark Side to save people from dying, you won't really need him anymore. If he's just going to betray you anyway, you might want to strike preemptively.

You've never taken any hard drugs but you think that this is what it feels like to be high. Adrenalin is still rushing through your veins long after you've finished at the base. However, as you return to your ship a surprise awaits you. It's a smooth Nubian ship. You've seen it many times and recognize it as Padmé's. What is your wife doing here? This is no place for her!

You go down to the platform to greet her but as it turns out, she hasn't only been worried. She tells you of having met Obi-Wan – you didn't even know he was back from his mission yet – and it seems she knows now of the grisly details of your mission at the temple. You had hoped to spare her this. Of course she doesn't understand why you had to do it. Obi-Wan has probably painted your actions in a terrible light. He's turning her against you!

She claims Obi-Wan wants to help and that all she wants is your love. But…

"Love won't save you Padmé. Only my new powers can do that," you tell her, trying to make her understand how serious this is. It is the only way to avoid your Force vision!

"At what cost? You're a good person, don't do this!" she begs.

"I won't lose you the way I lost my mother. I'm becoming more powerful than any Jedi has ever dreamed of and I'm doing it for you. To protect you."

But she shakes her head. "Come away with me. We can raise our child, leave everything else behind while we still can."  
"Don't you see? We don't have to run away anymore. I have brought peace to the Republic. I am more powerful than the chancellor, I-I can overthrow him. And together you and I can rule the galaxy. Make things the way we want them to be." You always thought the galaxy would be better off if a good leader made all the decisions for everyone and you can't imagine a better leader than Padmé.

But instead of being flattered, Padmé looks horrified. She steps away from you.

"I don't believe what I'm hearing. Obi-Wan was right. You've changed."

Obi-Wan, always Obi-Wan! You should've left him on Dooku's ship to die!

"I don't want to hear anymore about Obi-Wan. The Jedi turned against me. Don't you turn against me too."  
"I don't know you anymore. Anakin! You're breaking my heart! You're going down a path I can't follow!"

"Because of Obi-Wan?"  
"Because of what you've done! What you plan to do! Stop! Stop now, come back! I love you!"

Right in that Moment Obi-Wan appears out of Padmé's ship.

**Padmé has brought Obi-Wan here to kill me! Both of them must pay! (Go to 15)**

**There **_**could**_** be a reasonable explanation of why the two people I love most are ganging up on me. But it better be good! (Go to 14)**

* * *

**Y: Obi-Wan is dead**

You know that there is no going back for you. It is what you have to tell yourself time and time again with every Jedi you cut down. The problem is that killing them is so easy. With the 501st at your back, you storm the temple. You are on an official mission to execute the enemies of the Republic – this massacre, it's bloody legal! It would be funny if it wasn't so horrible.

Many of them are just children. Those that are old enough to know how to fight first see you as a fellow comrade, they recognize you as a hero and the surprise of having you turn on them makes it so easy to defeat them. Some of those that do manage to fight back actually have qualms about killing one of their own, turned traitor or not – that are those Jedi not suited for combat, who stayed behind because they're too pacifist. It's almost laughable.

That is not to say you face no resistance at all. The Jedi are not so stupid as to leave the temple completely undefended. But much time is wasted by knights searching for a Master or a Councilmember, not realizing those are lying dead in the Chancellor's office. There are only a handful who really face you with determination and it is then that you realize how much better you are than any of them. It is not just in raw Force power either. Even when you refrain from just crushing their throats with the Force, something nobody seems to be able to do much against, they can't match you in lightsaber combat. The Jedi put so much emphasis on keeping their students modest that they kept you from realizing just how good you are as a warrior. As a killer.

Soon you swat away all those Padawans and initiates because you crave a real challenge and you concentrate on that feeling and drink it in because it is the only way you can stand doing what you've been tasked to do.

At last it is over. You feel the Force empower you as it has never done before. It feels as if the life force of all those you killed today got added to your own. You feel invincible. If this is what the Dark Side feels like, it is no wonder the Jedi never managed to really wipe out the Sith. Power like this will always be rediscovered and once tasted, it is exhilarating.

You make your way over to Padmé's, wanting to make sure she's still alright and reassure her that you are not a victim of the uprising she will no doubt hear about in the news soon. She is worried of course and you regret that you can't tell her many details. You do mention that the Chancellor has sent you on a mission to Mustafar and that if all goes well, the war will be over soon.

Your journey to the volcanic planet on which the separatist leaders are hiding feels unbearably long. You are still craving for a challenge – you haven't even been injured during the storm of the temple and you feel no fatigue whatsoever. Seeing as you've barely slept during to the visions these past weeks, that is saying something.

The security the Separatists have here is laughably low. They must've counted on their location remaining a secret. Even more so, once you introduce yourself as Lord Vader they even let you into their midst willingly. They think you're here to protect them!

You knew that Sidious had to have worked with Dooku, as he must've been his previous apprentice. That means he worked with the Separatists the whole time. But seriously, working with a Sith Lord, didn't these cowardly creatures think one moment they might get betrayed?

Actually, you think while making short work of the Neimodians, does that mean that sooner or later Sidious will betray you too? Maybe you should work on a backup plan. After all, once Sidious has taught you how to use the Dark Side to save people from dying, you won't really need him anymore. If he's just going to betray you anyway, you might want to strike preemptively. Actually, he might do that now that you've conveniently disposed of all his enemies for you. You should think closely exactly how you will return to him.

**The clones love me and I've never been labeled a traitor. Now that the Jedi are gone I hold the single highest authority over the military. Let's return to Coruscant with a fleet and show Sidious who really holds all the cards! (Go to 6)**

**I still need Sidious to trust me so he'll teach me how to control the Dark Side. I will have to play according to his rules for a while longer. (Go to 7)**

* * *

**Z: Come to the Dark side**

You look at Palpatine and you know if you refuse, you will die. You're no stranger to the dark side but you know it doesn't get you the power Palpatine promises. Padmé is dead. Your children are dead. But if you died now, what would that accomplish? Nothing. Their deaths would be for nothing. If you agreed to join Palpatine… If you learned how to control that power that snaked its way into your soul, maybe you could at least accomplish something. Anything. Anything has to be better than death. Right?

"I will help you," you whisper, hating yourself even as you say it. Your voice sounds dead.

Palpatine scowls. "Your grief is crippling you. But you will learn that there is more to live for than a woman. Come to me. Let me show you the _true _power of the dark side."

Palpatine motions you closer ad you hesitantly step towards him. He bids you to take a seat and walks around behind you, laying his hands on your shoulders.

"Now, Anakin… open your mind. Feel the Force. Reach out towards it. What do you see?"

You do as you're told. The Force feels different than usual. Chaotic, restless, ever changing. And dark. Oh, so dark.

"I feel death," you say and a silent tear runs down your cheek. "So much death. And darkness."

"Yes. But beyond that?"

You concentrate harder. Then your lips part in surprise. "Joy. Relief. How is that possible?"

"The Force is a power that connects all living things. It serves to bring balance between all that is. Violence and peace, life and death. For a thousand years the Jedi and the Republic have been strong and what has this resulted in? Stagnation. Decay. Overpopulation. A lack of resources. This war has been terrible, yes, but it was necessary to bring about change. Your connection to the Force is so strong because you are a tool of it, a tool to restore the balance. The peace had to be interrupted. The Jedi had grown too numerous. By eliminating them I have restored the natural balance. By all means I should've killed you too… But you have always been such a dear friend to me. I care for you, Anakin. I truly do. You are not alone. I want to rebuild this galaxy and I want to do it with you by my side."

You start to relax as you let Palpatine's words sink in. He's right. His actions might be atrocious but they may very well be necessary to change everything that's wrong with the Republic. He is a Sith Lord… But he's never done anything to hurt you. In fact, he's always lend you what help he could during the war.

Slowly you open yourself up to the dark swirls of the Force and at once you feel its power rushing into you and gasp. It's so much! Your fatigues falls away like a dream. You feel revitalized and alive like you haven't in months.

"Good," Palpatine whispers in your ear. "Good. Feel that power. Make it yours. It is like an unruly pet, you have to leash it and bring it to heel."

You do feel the power struggling. It makes you feel lightheaded. There's a soft touch at the edge of your mind. You shy away from it at first but Palpatine whispers soothing words into your ear and you allow his presence closer, let him help you in wrestling that power under control.

"Good. Now that you control it, you have to feed it. You're in pain, my boy. Don't ignore that pain. Don't let it consume you either. Use it. Turn it into anger. Then you won't hurt anymore."

Not hurting anymore sounds fantastic. So you take a deep breath and focus on your pain. There's so much of it. Pain of losing Padme and the children. Pain of losing Ahsoka. Pain of losing your mother. You feel your old rage at the Tusken who killed Shmi, at the Jedi for betraying Ahsoka. And you feel anger, so much anger at your own failure of saving Padmé.

"Goood. Now turn that anger into desire. What do you want to change? Who do you want to destroy? What do you _want?"_

"I want the savages dead that rule in the Outer Rim. I want the Jedi to never resurface again. And I want the power to keep people from dying!" You don't really need it anymore, that last one, but you want it all the same. Just because.

"I can give you all that. Serve me and we will bring order to the galaxy together. The Jedi will be but a footnote in history and the knowledge of a thousand generations of Sith will be at your disposal."

"Yes," you say, your eyes opening and shining gold. "I want that."  
"Then rise, my apprentice. From this day forward you shall be known as Darth Vader. You will be my right hand as I bring the galaxy to heel."

You bow before your new Master. "What do you want me to do?"

"Go to Mustafar. The Separatist Council has gathered there. Once you destroy them, this war will soon be over. If you encounter any Jedi on your way… you know what to do." Palpatine retrieves something from what looks like some kind of secret compartment at his desk. When he comes back to you he presses the hilt of a lightsaber into your hand. The message is clear.

You give a deep bow to your new master and leave the office.

Your journey to the volcanic planet on which the separatist leaders are hiding feels unbearably long. Your heart still feels heavy with your loss but you are also full of energy from the power coursing through your veins. Any fatigue you might've felt just hours ago is gone. Seeing as you've barely slept during to the visions these past weeks, that is saying something.

The security the Separatists have here is laughably low. They must've counted on their location remaining a secret. Even more so, once you introduce yourself as Lord Vader they even let you into their midst willingly. They think you're here to protect them!

You knew that Palpatine… no, Darth Sidious had to have worked with Dooku, as he must've been his previous apprentice. That means he worked with the Separatists the whole time. But seriously, working with a Sith Lord, didn't these cowardly creatures think one moment they might get betrayed?

Actually, you think while making short work of the Neimodians, does that mean that sooner or later Sidious will betray you too? Maybe you should work on a backup plan. After all, once Sidious has taught you how to use the Dark Side to save people from dying, you won't really need him anymore. If he's just going to betray you anyway, you might want to strike preemptively.

You've never taken any hard drugs but you think that this is what it feels like to be high. Adrenalin is still rushing through your veins long after you've finished at the base. Once your mission is complete you make your way back to Coruscant. By now Palpatine has declared himself Emperor. He praises you on your success but the words that once would've made your heart swell in pride coming from the closest thing to a father figure you ever had, now just get a dismissive nod out of you.

The Emperor has prepared a speech for the public and you are to stand at his side. It's a grand affair, a big celebration. Palpatine announces the end of the war with the final defeat of the Separatists and the formation of the galactic Empire to make sure such war will never wreck the galaxy again. He mournfully informs the galaxy of the Jedi's treason and the justice that came down upon them. In the same breath he praises you, Anakin Skywalker, as the only Jedi to have remained loyal in your service to the galaxy and elevates you to Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy.

The crowd is going nuts with cheer. You know you are easily the most well beloved Jedi in the galaxy, seeing as the press used your face for their war propaganda for years now. But where before you would've glowed in pride at their praise, now you feel empty and even annoyed at their blind stupidity.

The following months are hectic. Your new name, your true name, is being kept a secret, as is your training in the dark side under Sidious. For the public you're a hero, hunting down the remaining Jedi traitors and reeling in the rest of the Separatis planets. You learn to control your emotions better than you've ever been able to as a Jedi, not by releasing them into the Force but by transforming them into useful emotions and channeling them in your training or during battle.

**If Obi-Wan is alive, go to 1.**

**If Obi-Wan is dead, go to 11.**

* * *

**1: Obi-Wan is alive**

Some of the surviving Jedi band together with a few rebellious planets and try to make trouble. They manage to separate you from your troops and before you know it you wind up facing an all too familiar Jedi.

So Obi-Wan has survived the slaughter. You're not surprised. He tries to talk with you, reason with you. He pleads you to listen, to abandon your post, to join him.

"And why would I do that?" you return, your cold heart not moved in the slightest by his speech. "What do you have to offer? A life on the run? Hiding in the shadows, clawing at the heels of a giant you will never be able to bring down?"

"You were never one for material possessions," Obi-Wan says. "You never cared if you were up against overwhelming odds. The Empire is _evil_, Anakin, you have to see that!"

"Yes, the Empire is evil," you answer quietly. "But it is a lesser evil. Once I am done making sure the Jedi order will never rise again, I will have all the time and resources I need to wipe out the scum of the galaxy. Slavers, smugglers, criminals. All those villains the order always ignored. The ones you ignore or worse yet, hide amongst."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "The Sith are the worst evil there is. The Emperor is using you! He doesn't care about order or peace, only about power!"

"Like you're so different," you mutter and raise your lightsaber. In a flurry of motion you attack your old master but Obi-Wan is good and matches you on every step.

"You only want to kill the Emperor because he is a Sith Lord. Because he happens to follow another Force religion than you. What would you do if he was just an ordinary human? The Empire got voted into existence completely legal. If the Jedi had been spared, those measly ten thousand that almost vanish in the list of casualties that was the clone wars, if it wasn't personal, would you have turned against the galactic government? Would any of the Jedi have?" You deliver a strong push with the Force and Obi-Wan slides away from you but manages to keep his balance. "No, they wouldn't have. Because it's only about power too. You prefer a democracy over a tyranny and you want to put that system in place no matter what, even if that is not what the people want. You are so sure of your moral high ground. But you are deluding yourself."

Obi-Wan attacks again. You exchange blow after blow. Your blades are spreading sparks as you cross them and you stare into the Jedi's eyes, his face only inches away from yours.

"I don't want to kill you, Anakin," Obi-Wan says.

You push against his saber, then abruptly lower your arm, letting his blade slide alongside yours. You raise your free hand towards him and summon your anger, ten years of frustration from working under a master that made you feel unworthy and you let it all out in a stream of blue. Obi-Wan screams as the lightning hits him unexpectedly. You hold him there for five seconds, watching as he shakes in pain and sinks to his knees. When the lightning fades your red lightsaber lays on Obi-Wan's shoulder.

"I don't want to kill you either, Kenobi," you say, none of your emotions visible on your face.

"Anakin…," he rasps out, exhausted.

"For the sake of the years we spend together, for the sake of the bond that once was between us, I will spare your life… today. But make no mistake. If you ever get into my way again, I _will _kill you."

You lower your lightsaber, then summon the one Obi-Wan has let fall to the ground and pocket it.

"Run," you advise, "run until your soles run red with blood and your lungs scream as if on fire. Run and never come back. The era of the Jedi is over and shall never return."

Obi-Wan looks at you, broken and tired and with tears glinting in his eyes. You turn your back on him. Your work here is done.

The Jedi behind you whispers something you can't make out. But he repeats it a moment, later, shouting at your retreating back.

"You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!"

You don't turn around. His words bring a stab of pain to your heart but you remember your training and turn that pain to anger – how dare he say that now!? For years you craved for this man's love and yet any kind gesture he made towards you, you always assumed it was out of duty because he was your master. In over ten years, he never ever once said those words you needed to hear more than anything. How dare he do it now, when it's too late!?

You fuel your anger into quickening your strides and concentrate on the mission. Your troops pick you up and you clean up the rest of the battlefield. Obi-Wan manages to escape that day but you never hear from him again. Whatever hope the old Jedi had, you managed to crush it.

**Go to 11.**

* * *

**2: You can heal Padmé**

You never got around to learning that Sith technique to keep people from dying but maybe you won't need it. Say about Obi-Wan what you want but he has been useful for one thing. Hopefully the healing lessons he organized for you in the Jedi temple will be enough to save the love of your life.

Of course you haven't learned anything specific about how to aid in a birth but you do know how to stem a bleeding and how to supply a patients strength with your own. Even so, the next couple of hours are almost as trying for you as they are for Padmé. Every time she lets out a scream your soul hurts. Your fear for her draws the dark side to you and it claws at you, making it oh so hard to concentrate one the light of the Force that you need for this. But in between her screams Padmé squeezes your hand and smiles at you and thanks you for being here and somehow, incredibly, that smile is enough to drive back the darkness.

Soon enough the reason for the expected complications of the birth is becoming evident - Padmé isn't having just one child, she's having two. When you finally lift a small, healthy baby boy out of her you think it's all over and you're scared and confused when she won't stop screaming, not to mention her belly is still so large. Then the second head begins to show and it's both parts a relief - finally you know what was always supposed to go 'wrong' with the birth - and part horror because Padmé already looks so weakened from the first birth, how is she to manage a second?

Miraculously, all three of them make it. You pour as much strength into your wife with the Force as you dare. You also think it might've helped that since you had to concentrate so much, you kept a calm mind for Padmé to latch onto instead of freaking out as you might've done if you didn't know how to be useful. Padmè's family is also a great help in keeping everyone calm.

Eight hours later you have two wonderful children, a son and a daughter and Padmé is exhausted but alive. She has never looked more beautiful than when she's nursing the twins with that bright smile on her face. Together you name the little ones Luke and Leia Skywalker and you swear you will be there for them their whole life and nothing is going to stop you from doing so.

For the next couple of months, the only source of information you have is the Imperial News Channel. Obi-Wan's death was never confirmed, which is a huge relief to you. Then one day he turns up on your doorstep. Apparently he's been in contact with a few influential people to start building up a help network for Jedi who managed to escape the purge as well as forming a resistance to the increasingly tyrannical new laws and regulations the Emperor is implementing. You are hesitant to engage in such activities at first. Your face is right up there on the list of top wanted Jedi generals, to the point where you don't go out in public anymore without some sort of disguise. However you can clearly see that some of the new regulations you hear of are more than worrying. The Emperor is snatching up Force sensitive children to do who-knows-what with them, including many of the Jedi rejects. He's working with crime Lords such as Jabba the Hutt and the new system of Moffs and Grand Moffs doesn't look any less corrupt to you than what was in place during the Republic. The new positions favor the ambitious and back-stabbing and those most sycophantic to the Emperor rather than the ones with the most money but nowhere do you see any true dedication to the people they're supposed to rule. Padmé very much despises the new changes and is always just one step away from throwing herself into the fray fighting the Empire, only staying behind for the sake of the children.

In the end, you do agree to look into this 'rebellion thingy' Obi-Wan keeps mentioning, if only to shut up your wife and because life as a dad in seclusion does get a tiny bit boring.

Once you actively enter the fray, the Empire reveals much more of its ugly sides. Labor camps, the enslavement of entire races, torture of prisoners, the fear, the despair, the general darkening of the entire Living Force - it is not a galaxy you want your children to grow up in.

It's like the Clone Wars all over again. You regret deeply how little time you can spend with your family but at least this time you fight for something you can believe in and when you return to them, the little ones look at you with hero-worship.

Four years pass like this. Once again you're the face of a war effort, this time for the Republic. Having the Hero-without-fear join them catapults their morale up into the sky. You insist that one of the first planets captured by the rebellion as soon as they have a small fleet is Kamino, where you put pressure on the locals until they help you develop a virus that will corrupt the clone's biochips and turn them from slaves back into sentient beings. The result is a mass desertion of the Imperial forces as only a small part had been replaced by normal recruits by that point. This victory helps to turn the tide of the war. A year later you have enough of an attack force to target Imperial center and together with Obi-Wan you infiltrate the palace and fight Darth Sidious in an epic lightsaber battle in which he totally fails to draw you to the dark side and ultimately loses his head to your lightsaber.

The Empire is toppled soon after and three months later the New Republic is declared.

Several dozen Jedi start coming out of hiding bit by bit. The order is being started up again, albeit with much reconstruction necessitated to the smaller member count. Nobody really cares if you're married or not, for example. You refuse any sort of leading role in the new order but Obi-Wan becomes the new Grandmaster since Yoda's mental health took too much of a beating with the loss of so many Jedi and he chose to remain in exile. You do let yourself be pressured into the position of Councilor though and decades later after Obi-Wan resigns during to old age, you take his post.

Your children are one of the first new initiates welcomed into the New Order, though Padmé and you insist that their education gets supplemented with subjects usually taught at public schools so that if they grow up and decide they don't want to be Jedi after all, all opportunities will remain open for them. It becomes the new norm; young children concentrate on using the Force to supplement their existing skills. The study of deeper Force mysteries or lightsaber combat takes up much less time until they're sixteen, at which point they can chose if they want to become Jedi or pursue other interests. Only part of that is at your insistence (as one of only a handful of adult Jedi remaining, your voice now has quite some influence). The other reason is simply that much knowledge about the Force was lost during the purge and there aren't all that many Jedi masters capable of teaching left.

Padmé remains on Coruscant as an advisor for the newest Senator of Naboo, which gives her more time with her family. You all come together on weekends as well as the occasional holiday and when time allows it, sneak in a visit in the evening. The fact that you no longer have to keep your relationship a secret is a load off both your shoulders. One year after the fall of the Empire, your third child is born, a lively boy you call Lars in honor of the loving farmer who freed your mother from slavery - and also to keep with the theme of baby names starting with L. All three of your children turn out to be very strong in the Force. Luke very much enjoys life as a Jedi while Leia, despite showing obvious talent with the Force, drops out to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a politician instead, eventually rising as high as Senator of Coruscant. Lars too can use the Force but is a lot more specific in his talents than Luke and eventually decides to drop the Jedi career in favor of becoming a professional racer. All three of them make you incredibly proud. For as long as you live, you never have a vision about a family member dying again.

(Decades later, long after you're gone, the First Order starts up a ruckus. But that is a story for another fanfiction.)

**END**

**Rating:**

You completely missed the plot on Empire day, avoided making any galaxy-changing decisions… and it worked out for you!

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic, though you had to fight the Empire for a while (+5 LS)

**State of the twins**: Alive and happy, free to choose whatever career they want, including Jedi (+10LS)

**Martial status**: Happily married! (+10LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Slowly recovering after Order 66 (+3LS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10LS)

**Cause of death**: Old age. (+10LS)

**Total**: 48/60 Light Side points!


	5. A happy marriage 3-6

**3: You have no idea what to do**

You never got around to learning that Sith technique to keep people from dying and without it, you feel you're really screwed right about now. Panic settles in. You don't know anything about how to aid in a birth. Was there something about warm water and towels? But what are those for?

You try to talk to Padmé, keep her calm but every time she lets out a scream your soul hurts. Then it gets from bad to worse. The reason for the expected complications of the birth is becoming evident - Padmé isn't having just one child, she's having two. When you finally lift a small, healthy baby boy out of her you think it's all over and you're scared and confused when she won't stop screaming, not to mention her belly is still so large. Then the second head begins to show and it's both parts a relief - finally you know what was always supposed to go 'wrong' with the birth - and part horror because Padmé already looks so weakened from the first birth, how is she to manage a second?

As it turns out, she doesn't. You feel so useless as you sit by her side, crying and begging her not to leave you even as you watch her strength wane. She's fighting, you can tell she is but birthing two very powerful Force-sensitives unaided has left her weak and bleeding out and _you just don't know what to do._ Padmé's family tries to help best they can but they have neither the experience nor the equipment to truly help. Six hours later you have two wailing children, a son and a daughter and Padmé is dead.

Your heart is breaking with your loss and for a moment you wish you could follow your wife wherever she went. But then the children wail and you know you have to keep on going. For them.

The Naberries are more than ready to hide the children from the Empire but without Padmé to win them over, they are reluctant to also hide such a well known fugitive such as you. You can't really blame them for it. You can't take care of the twins while you're on the run but you're reluctant to leave them with the Naberries. If the Emperor is looking for Force-sensitive children and has a suspicion that Padmé was pregnant from you, her family would be the first place to look for them.

You don't really have any friends that are not on the run that could help you though. Padmé however does. She was good friends with Senator Bail Organa from Alderaan and didn't she once tell you that the Organas tried for children? They would be sympathetic and likely to help.

**If Obi-Wan is dead, go to 8**

**If Obi-Wan is alive, go to 9.**

* * *

**4: Stay with Jedi officially. **

You bow your head lightly, silently apologizing to Padmé.

"I would be honored to accept such a position. But this is not the time or place to speak about such things."

Mace nods sagely. "I agree. Let me call the temple and tell them what has transpired here."

Mace and you stay by the office for a while longer. Security soon comes to blockade the whole area. Mace manages to secure passage for a few Jedi knights to help move the bodies of the fallen Masters so they can be given a proper funeral. You both have to endure hours of interviews about what lead to their death and the death of the Chancellor. An investigation is started into the Jedi's claim that Palpatine was a Sith Lord and secretly conspiring with Count Dooku.

The Council is in shambles but Mace Windu makes good on his promise to elevate you to master status. Before you give your final agreement though, you pull him aside to make one last confession.

"There is one other issue I have to talk to you about before you go through with your recommendation of me," you tell him. "My recent struggles aside, I have always been a bit at odds with the principles of the Jedi."

"I realize that," Mace answers. "You are temperamental, proud and sometimes arrogant. It is why I had so many reservations about you before. But in our time of need, when it really mattered, you proved yourself time and time again. You accomplishments can no longer be ignored."

"That may be so but it is not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to the rule of singular attachment. The truth is… I've been in a romantic relationship with Senator Padmé Amidala for several years now. We married in secret and are expecting a child."

Mace stares at you in shock for a moment, then scowls. "That does indeed provide a problem. I thank you for being honest with me but this rule does exist for a reason. No Jedi can put the well-being or happiness of one single person above the majority, especially not a political person. People are going to talk. They would say you killed Palpatine as a favor to your wife, that you eliminated him so that she could rise higher to power by using the sympathy of the people from having lost her fellow Nabooan. They will say you used your relationship with her to find out information about Palpatine and his dealings."

"I never did any of those things!"

"Of course not," Mace drawled, not sounding wholly convinced. "But you see the dilemma?"

"Then what are my choices?"

"I can think of three. You could officially leave the Jedi and deal with the consequences of petty gossip and rumor on your own. I could arrange for you to get a position on one of the Agri worlds, where you could stay a Jedi and if your… wife is willing to give up her career, you could live a sheltered life away from public eye while still performing your duty to the galaxy. Or, you could denounce your relationship with her and get a divorce as secretly as you got a marriage. I would arrange for you to take up active duty as soon as possible so you will be spending little to no time on Coruscant with a chance to see her. You will dedicate your life to the Jedi way and take your leave from this woman."

You don't have to ask to know which possibility Mace prefers.

"I would be willing to return to active duty," you agree, "but there is one request I would make. For weeks now I have been having visions of Padmé dying in childbirth. I recognize them as visions rather than dreams as I've had them before about another person. I ended up unable to save them because I didn't take the visions seriously enough. Now I fear there will be complications during the birth. I know that it is highly unusual but it would make my parting a lot more bearable if I knew her to be safe. Therefore, I ask that Padmé be given access to the Jedi's healer wing when the time comes. I know of no other facility better equipped to handle an emergency."

Mace' scowl deepens. "You ask a lot of me, Skywalker. With the war, the healers are always busy tending to the injured. You are asking to give priority of treatment to your wife over a fellow Jedi."

"I'm asking to give priority to a pregnant woman that the Force tells me is going to die if left on her own as well as an innocent baby that, being from my blood, is likely to be very much Force-sensitive and could become a great Jedi themselves one day."

If Mace' scowl would deepen any further, his brown was sure to land on the floor eventually.

"I will talk to the healers. However, I will hold you to your promise. You will depart the temple on a mission in the morning. I will collect the necessary paperwork in the meantime. Once Senator Amidala has given birth, you will return to hand in the divorce and after that is done, you will be declared a Master, be transferred to Dantooine or another academy and take on a Padawan on your own."

"…Yes, Master."

Departing on the morning means you have only hours to say goodbye. You don't intend to waste a single second of it. As such you make your way to Padmé's apartment immediately, then wait for a couple of agonizing hours for her to show up. You explain to her what happened, the Chancellor's true nature and his death, how you admitted to your relationship with her to Mace Windu when he wanted to promote you and the ultimatum you were given. Padmé is in tears about your decision to break up. She always knew the day would come when the two of you had to make a final decision but she'd hoped you had more time. The fact that she's pregnant and highly emotional doesn't help matters.

You explain that the reason you chose this path is because it was the only way to get the Jedi to take care of her when she was giving birth. Padmé swats your concerns aside, she claims countless women have managed just fine without any help and anyway, it's not like the Jedi specify in birth aid. It takes a lot of talking and apologies but at last she agrees to take them up on their offer of help for the sake of the baby. However, she is still deeply hurt by your decision to go through with this without even asking her opinion beforehand and she makes her displeasure quite known by kicking you out of the apartment.

You have never felt more miserable in your life than in that moment.

That is until two weeks later, in the middle of a useless reconnaissance mission, your loyal clone troopers suddenly point their rifles at your back and pull the trigger.

It is only your extraordinary connection to the Force that gives you a split second of a warning and you war-honed reflexes that make you drop to the ground and save your life. You move without much thought, cutting through the rifles with your lightsaber, killing two of the clones accompanying you and threatening the third until he admits that he is following an order to kill the Jedi. Any Jedi. All Jedi.

Shortly after a series of terrible presentiments sends you to your knees, followed by the potent feeling of _ohmygodI'msoscrewed._

You're forced to kill the last trooper when he tries to attack you in your vulnerable state. You do not return to the base, instead using the communication system of your Jedi fighter to get in contact with the temple. There's a message recalling all Jedi to the temple but your gut tell you that that's where the horrible feeling originates from.

You're terribly afraid for Padmé but after some research you find out Coruscant has been blockaded. You could try to break through it but you would risk your life and it would take time, it would be reckless and didn't you say you'd try to be a better Jedi? Better than that?

So instead, you go into hiding. Eventually you get in contact with Bail Organa, one of Padme's senator friends, in hope he can tell you about her fate. Bail turns out to be a great source of information: Padmé survived the birth of not only one but two children. The unexpected attack on the Jedi by clones took place all over the galaxy and the temple was under siege when Padmé was there. However, the clones were leaderless and badly organized. Many Jedi died but they were able to hold the temple and prevent the clones from entering their sanctuary.

As it turns out, the official investigation into the Chancellor's dealings procured no proof of him working with Count Dooku. As such, Mace Windu and you were declared murderers and wanted for high treason and the Jedi Council got stripped of its privileges and authority until further notice.

Somehow, the clones understood that announcement as all Jedi being enemies of the Republic and the senate. It triggered some kind of hidden order in their genetic programming, causing them to turn on their former generals and attack the Jedi en masse.

Since they didn't have the backing of any actual senator or military leader and their attacks were somewhat unorganized, many influential Jedi survived and there was a great public outcry about the massacre. The senate scrambled to get back in the good graces of the people. Bail Organa got selected as the new Chancellor and put together a new investigation that actually did their job. They uncovered the connection between Dooku and the clone army, which lent a lot more credibility to the theory of Palpatine working with the Sith. In the end Mace and you were declared innocent, though it was too late for the other Jedi master who died defending the temple.

Things are just starting to look up again when the Separatists attack with new vigor. They were on the verge of defeat already but with the Republic losing more than half of their Jedi generals, their moral skyrockets and before long they are back in the game.

It takes the senate two years to find a way to nullify the genetic order given to the clones. They can't afford to simply dismiss them with the war going on and they can't afford to order new ones. As such the war continues on. Both sides are missing their leaders and generals, both sides have exhausted their resources.

You spend those two years in hiding. Your deal with Mace is pretty much worthless by now and with all the confusion and the Jedi order breaking apart, nobody really cares about your relationships. As such you manage to sneak in a few visits to Padmé and the twins here and there, though she is still cross with you for abandoning her and refuses to just continue where you left of.

When the standing order to kill all Jedi finally does get nullified, the survivors slowly start coming out of hiding again. That gives the Republic the advantage they need to trump the Separatists in the stalemate of negotiations. A ceasefire is being mediated and shortly after, a lasting peace. A lot of neutral or conquered worlds rejoin the Republic while a small percentage is allowed to declare their independence.

It takes many years for the Jedi order to recover from the ordeal. You do eventually become a Master. Nobody really cares anymore about your relationship status. Unfortunately said relationship never completely recovers and Padmé eventually files for a divorce all by herself. You do visit the twins as often as you can though. They start expressing a desire to learn about the Force when they're six years old and so you introduce them to the order and a few years later, take them on as Padawan. In doing so you're breaking so many rules and traditions but you're the hero-without-fear, you killed a Sith Lord and are one of only a handful of Masters still alive – nobody thinks to question you. You do regret ever agreeing to a Council seat though, as you vastly underestimated the amount of paperwork.

Bail gets reelected for a second term and once that runs out, Padmé takes over as Chancellor of the Republic. Your relationship with her moves from friendly to distant business-only and you can do little but accept her decision. On the upside, you do get to travel the galaxy with your two Padawan-children and both your son Luke and your daughter Leia show an amazing potential in the Force. Before long they become Jedi knights themselves. Leia, weirdly, falls in love with a wayward smuggler on one of her missions in the Outer Rim and ends up continuing your line in a way you're not 100% sure you approve of (she could do so much better than that ruffian!).

Without the two to take care of all the time, you dedicate the rest of your life to the fight against slavery, especially in the Outer Rim worlds. That task is made easier after Yoda finally retires and you get named the new grandmaster. You die at the age of 95, surrounded by your children, and grandchildren, and great-grand children.

Then you come back as a Force ghost to continue lecturing them, because why the fuck not?

**END**

**Rating:**

You tried to remain faithful to the Jedi principles and got screwed over by Sidious' contingency plans for your trouble.

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic, though the Separatist war lasted a good deal longer than it could have (+5 LS)

**State of the twins**: Alive and happy, Jedi in a redeemed order (+9LS)

**Martial status**: Divorced (+5LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Slowly recovering after Order 66 (+3LS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10LS)

**Cause of death**: Old age. (+10LS)

**Total**: 42/60 Light Side points!

* * *

**5:** **Leave Jedi to be with family. **

You shake your head slowly. "I'm sorry but I can't accept your offer," you tell Mace Windu. "I have my reasons and I'll make them known in time. But for now we have more pressing matters to deal with."

Mace nods. "That we do. Let me call the temple and tell them what has transpired here."

Mace and you stay by the office for a while longer. Security soon comes to blockade the whole area. Mace managed to secure passage for a few Jedi knights to help move the bodies of the fallen Masters so they can be given a proper funeral. You both have to endure hours of interviews about what lead to their death and the death of the Chancellor. An investigation is started into the Jedi's claim that Palpatine was a Sith Lord and secretly conspiring with Count Dooku.

You meet up with Padmé, who's been worried sick about you, and explain that as soon as the investigation is over you plan to leave the Jedi to be with her and the child. She asks many times if you're really sure but in the end, she's ecstatic about your decision.

The Council is in shambles but Mace Windu manages to pull you aside a few days later and get back to you about your earlier conversation.

"Well Skywalker, your notoriety has risen again. With so many Masters dead, we do need fresh blood in our ranks. I do not know why you rejected my offer earlier. You are temperamental, proud and sometimes arrogant. It is why I had so many reservations about you before. But in our time of need, when it really mattered, you proved yourself time and time again. You accomplishments can no longer be ignored. I would ask you to consider again if you don't want to take up the title of Jedi Master."

"I'm flattered how highly you think of me," you reply with sarcasm. "But before you make that offer to me, I should make a confession. I have broken the Jedi code multiple times, particularly the rule of singular attachment. The truth is… I've been in a romantic relationship with Senator Padmé Amidala for several years now. We married in secret and are expecting a child."

Mace stares at you in shock for a moment, then scowls. "That does indeed provide a problem. I thank you for being honest with me but this rule does exist for a reason. No Jedi can put the well-being or happiness of one single person above the majority, especially not a political person. People are going to talk. They would say you killed Palpatine as a favor to your wife, that you eliminated him so that she could rise higher to power by using the sympathy of the people from having lost her fellow Nabooan. They will say you used your relationship with her to find out information about Palpatine and his dealings."

"I never did any of those things!"

"Of course not," Mace drawls, not sounding wholly convinced. "But you see the dilemma?"

"Then what are my choices?"

"I can think of three. You could officially leave the Jedi and deal with the consequences of petty gossip and rumor on your own. I could arrange for you to get a position on one of the Agri worlds, where you could stay a Jedi and if your… wife is willing to give up her career, you could live a sheltered life away from public eye while still performing your duty to the galaxy. Or, you could denounce your relationship with her and get a divorce as secretly as you got a marriage. I would arrange for you to take up active duty as soon as possible so you will be spending little to no time on Coruscant with a chance to see her. You will dedicate your life to the Jedi way and take your leave from this woman."

You don't have to ask to know which possibility Mace prefers.

"I am sorry Master but I swore a vow to my wife to be with her until death us part. I cannot leave her, especially not now," you refuse. "I will leave the Jedi if I have to. In fact, I can hand in my resignation today. But there is one request I would make. For weeks now I have been having visions of Padmé dying in childbirth. I recognize them as visions rather than dreams as I've had them before about another person. I ended up unable to save them because I didn't take the visions seriously enough. Now I fear there will be complications during the birth. I know that it is highly unusual but I must ask one last favor, for all the years of service this order owes me. I ask that Padmé be given access to the Jedi's healer wing when the time comes. I know of no other facility better equipped to handle an emergency."

Mace' scowl deepens. "You ask a lot of me, Skywalker. With the war, the healers are always busy tending to the injured. You are asking to give priority of treatment to your wife over a fellow Jedi."

"I'm asking to give priority to a pregnant woman that the Force tells me is going to die if left on her own as well as an innocent baby that, being from my blood, is likely to be very much Force-sensitive and could become a great Jedi themselves one day."

If Mace' scowl would deepen any further, his brown was sure to land on the floor eventually.

"I am sorry Skywalker but the Jedi cannot play favorites so openly and for one who rejects our teachings no less. A single Jedi privately associated with a senator leaving the order because he's blind with love is one thing but the order providing medical service that we don't even specialize in for a politician who drove one of our own out of our ranks, that is quite another matter entirely. If you are worried about the Senator, you should bring her to a proper hospital. I'm sure she will be well taken care of there."

You did expect as much already but still you feel like you had to try.

"I understand. In that case, I will take my leave now," you say a bit more coldly and turn away.

You do hand in your resignation the same day. Just as Mace predicted, the press has a field day with that piece of gossip but it is not the first time Padmé and you have been the center of attention and you ride the waves of public dismay like pros.

You leave the order with nothing but the shirt on your back but the pay of a Senator is quite generous. So it's no trouble for you to open up a little droid shop in one of the good neighborhoods of Coruscant that will allow for a good living for your family and you.

Then the day comes. Padmé is in the kitchen preparing dinner when she gasps out. The Force practically vibrates in warning around her and you don't need to see the wetness running down her tights to know that something is wrong.

"Anakin," she says weakly, "I think the baby is coming."

You curse and jump out of your seat. Padmé whimpers as you scoop her up in your arms and carry her outside. You carefully put her in the passenger seat of your hover car and then race her to the nearest hospital.

During the birth you insist on being at her side. Two midwifes and a doctor are there to care for her but you feel it still won't be enough. The whole time all you can think about is your vision. You haven't had one for the last couple of days but doesn't have to mean anything.

In the end, your worries were for nothing. Even though it turns out Padmé is having twins and they end up having to make an emergency C-section during to some complications, the medical team is more than qualified and has all the equipment available that they need to handle the operation. Padmé is actually handling this all a lot better than you are and she's the one in agonizing pain.

You name your son Luke and your daughter Leia and Padmé has never looked more beautiful than in that moment when she lies there, sweaty and red-faced with a baby in each arm, smiling.

You're sure you're the luckiest man in the galaxy.

**Go to 13 if Obi-Wan is dead at this point.**

**Go to 12 if Obi-Wan is alive at this point.**

* * *

**6: Let's return with a fleet!**

You return to your ship and send a message to Coruscant space control, the small fleet that protects the capital planet. Everyone there is very confused about what is going on right now but you explain:

"I'm afraid the war has driven many of our good leaders to desperate measures. The Jedi are convinced the Republic is conspiring against them to kill them off in this drawn out war. The Chancellor is convinced the Jedi are out to kill him and issued a massive attack on them. The clones turned out to be brainwashed into following any order he gives them. And while the Jedi and the clones are fighting each other, the whole galaxy is being left vulnerable to the Separatists! I managed to eliminate their leadership but Coruscant has to be secured lest we face a civil war. I'm taking control of the situation. The Chancellor is to be held under house arrest until he can pass a psychical evaluation. For the Jedi, all help comes too late but we can at least make sure to end this war before it becomes a greater mess."

It takes some more arguing and one officer choking on his own spit before Coruscant Space control promises to support you. You make your way back to the capital and once there, the CSC orders the clones to lay down their arms – which of course, they don't. You let the two forces battle it out with each other and make your way to the senate where you can sense Palpatine's presence. It takes you about fifteen minutes to slaughter your way through his guards but then you finally arrive at his office.

"Well, well, my apprentice. It didn't take you long to turn on me," Sidious drawls with a scowl.

"This is the way of the Sith, is it not? After all, Dooku betrayed you too. Why, he even started a war to try and kill you."

"Dooku was my apprentice," Sidious corrects you. "Everything he did, he did at my bidding."  
"Even the abduction!?" you ask incredulously.

"The threat to Coruscant and me made the danger for the senators all the more real. The war thus far was far away… I had to bring it to them at some point so they would fear it enough to agree on the bill to grant me even more emergency powers." Sidious scowls at you. "If you still haven't figured any of this out yourself, you have even more to learn than I expected. You think yourself clever but you know nothing of the subtleties necessary of a true Sith. There is more than just matters of the Force I have to teach you."

"Maybe so… But I've decided I can't really trust your word. So here's the deal. You tell me how I can use the dark side to safe Padmé's life… and I'll convince the senate that you haven't gone crazy when you killed off all the Jedi."

"Ah, but I did not kill all the Jedi. Most of that was your work," Sidious reminded him.

"True but I was wearing a hood and anyway, who would believe the Hero-without-fear would turn against his order like that? Besides, I know a crafty little astromech who can help me erase all the evidence."

"And what will you do if I don't take your… deal?"  
You twirl around the lightsaber some more. "I think you know that already."

"Very well, so be it then," Sidious says quietly. Suddenly he comes flying at you, a red lightsaber springs up in his hands and slashes at you.  
What follows is an intense lightsaber battle. Both of you are drawing heavily on the dark side, his anger and hatred against your confidence and bloodlust.

But Sidious _is _still weakened from his earlier duel and the massive slaughter you've engaged in has strengthened your connection to the dark side to unknown heights. The fight is a long one but in the end you have the Sith Lord in your grasp, holding him aloft with the Force and slowly crushing his windpipe, enjoying every moment of it. He tries one last time to reason with you:

"If you kill me now… You will never save your wife!"

"You never would've taught me anyway," you scoff and close your fist. Sidious sinks to the ground, dead.

"And if you wanted to appeal to my heroic side, you shouldn't have made me kill so many children," you add and spit on his corpse.

You step over to Palpatine's private console and use his code to send a message to all clones planetside to lay down their arms. Shortly after, the CSC confirms that the planet is under their control. You call together an emergency senate meeting, change into some clean robes and go to address the senate:

"Senators! My name is Anakin Skywalker. You all know me well as I have fought to defend each of your planets from the Separatist for years now. I have served as a General and as an advisor to our beloved Chancellor. It is in that position that I found out a most horrible truth: that the Chancellor was in fact in league with Count Dooku, the leader of the Separatist. Once I told my fellow Jedi about this, they tried to arrest him for treason against the Republic. However, Palpatine killed them all. It turned out he was highly proficient in the use of the Force himself. I can only imagine how he has used these powers to influence any of you. Later he ordered the clones all over the galaxy to execute their Jedi Generals. I was unfortunately not here to prevent any of this as I was following intelligence on the whereabouts of the Separatist Council. I'm happy to report our enemies are now without leaders but once I returned I uncovered this conspiracy and I confronted the Chancellor about it." You give a sign to a senate aide and he starts a pre-edited recording:

"_Dooku was my apprentice,_" the blue image of Sidious in the holo-recording says. _"Everything he did, he did at my bidding."  
"Even the abduction!_?" your image asks incredulously.

"_The threat to Coruscant and me made the danger for the senators all the more real. The war thus far was far away… I had to bring it to them at some point so they would fear it enough to agree on the bill to grant me even more emergency powers." _

The recording skipped ahead, showing a short extract from the duel between you and Sidious in which you were fending off Force lightning with your lightsaber, then ends and the senate is in an uproar.

"As you can see, the Chancellor has fooled the whole galaxy for years, conspiring against the Republic, probably using his Force powers to warp the minds of the weak-willed. This never would've happened if the Jedi were allowed greater political power. This entire war could've been prevented. However, now that we know what happened, we can end all this and start a new era for this galaxy, an era that will bring back order and security. What this galaxy needs is a strong leader that will protect it and that will make decisions based on discussions not with thousands of parties that ineffectively argue with each other but a small council of advisors that debate the best course of action and then make sure it is executed! Therefore I propose a reconstruction of this body. It's purpose shall be the selection of the Galactic Council, who will serve to advise one single, impartial leader on galactic politics. This leader ought to be a Jedi, one with experience and training both as a diplomat and a general. A Jedi will not favor any one planet over another and a Jedi will not misuse his powers to influence others, nor be susceptible to such influence from others. As the only Jedi General who is confirmed to have survived the devastating attack on my order, I nominate myself for election."

Afterwards, you couldn't really be sure what convinced the senate to vote in your favor. Was it your speech and the compelling evidence against Sidious? Was it the armed security officers standing at every entrance glaring at the senators? Was it your presence in the Force that swept away even the non-sensitives in your passion?

In any case, you get elected as the Supreme Leader of the nearly named Galactic Order. You leave the senate to take care of the mess outside and leave the politicians to squabble about who gets to be on your council. You don't really care, seeing as the council only has an advisory function and no real power. It will serve to distract them though.

The first thing you do is make sure any footage of you cleansing the Jedi temple is deleted. You go to the clones and find that now that's you're officially ruling the galaxy, whatever caused them to follow Palpatine's orders blindly has transferred to you (which is awfully convenient). You sent out a message to all Jedi out there to return to Coruscant, then tell the clones to arrest everyone who manages it and bring them before you. You're not an unreasonable leader. You will give them the chance to join you. If they don't…. well, nobody is going to miss them.

Cleaning up Coruscant, taking care of any Jedi who return and browsing though Sidious' stuff keeps you very much busy. You're a bit ashamed when suddenly your new secretary tells you that Senator Padmé Amidala is there to speak to you. You've completely forgotten about your wife.

Truth to be told you're a bit apprehensive of the coming conversation. You know Padmé's position on democracy and you've effectively just killed it.

But Padmé merely shows herself very worried about you. She's glad that you didn't get caught up in the clone's massacre and ever so grateful that you revealed the Chancellor for the monster he is.

"That must've been so hard for you, Ani, to find out that he was going behind everyone's back like that…"

"It was a shock, I admit. I didn't want to say anything to the senate but… Palpatine was a Sith Lord, Padmé. He had to be stopped."

"I see why you didn't say anything. The senate never really believed the Jedi that Dooku was a Sith either," she muses.

"Exactly!"

"But… When you came to me earlier, you said the Chancellor had sent you to Mustafar. That was after the temple got attacked. Why… Why did you not go to the temple to help the Jedi? Why did you follow his instructions? Why did you not see that he had to be working with the Separatists to know where they were hiding?"

"Well," you say, scrambling for an explanation, "I actually was at the temple, you see. Barely escaped with my life! I went to the Chancellor to ask him for help. He said he would sent some non-clone security forces immediately to help with whatever made the clones go crazy. In hindsight of course I know that he was behind the attack himself but I didn't know back then! And he told me that one of his spies had located the Separatist Council and if I didn't go right away to take care of them the war would never end. I was a fool for believing him… But once I found out the truth I made him pay for it!"

Padmé smiles softly at you. "And in doing so you protected us all. I'm so proud of you, Ani. Just look at you! Supreme Leader of the Galactic Order."

You smile a bit shyly. "Well, I very much hope you will help me with this position. I'll put you on the Council of course. Or better yet, I'll create a position for Supreme Consort or something, then we can rule the galaxy together!"

"And after us, our child can rule it," Padmé says and pads her stomach lovingly. "It will be a Skywalker dynasty!"

"Padmé, I love you so much!" You close your arms around her and kiss her like crazy and that night she shows you just how much she adores you in your new position of power.

You fall asleep with a stupid grin on your face, deeply satisfied, the dark side filled with passion and greed all around you.

They find your headless corpse in your bed the next day and no sign of your lightsaber anywhere to see. Curiously, Padmé Amidala also vanished from the planet without a trace.

The new system you proposed never gets fully implemented. Without security guards pointing guns at their backs, the senate decides that since the war is won, there really isn't any need to change the old system after all.

**END**

**Rating:**

You took over the galaxy before Sidious had a chance to establish himself as Emperor but your wife didn't much appreciate that…

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic (0 DS)

**State of the twins**: Alive and not likely to like you very much (+5DS)

**Martial status**: Your wife killed you. (0DS)

**State of the Jedi:** Slowly recovering after Order 66 (+7DS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10DS)

**Cause of death**: Again. Your wife killed you. How did you manage that!? (0DS)

**Total**: 22/60 dark Side points. Wow, you suck.


	6. Empire, Republic, Separatist 7-17

**7: Keep following Sidious' instructions**

You return to Coruscant and immediately go to your Master to report on the success of the mission. Sidious shows himself pleased but has a new mission for you right away – you are to go and eliminate General Grivious. Apparently the Jedi tried to send a party to do it before but they failed and now it falls to you to kill off the last hope of the Separatists.

"But… Master," you try, "you promised me the power to save Padmé… I fear whatever threatens her could come to pass any moment. With the Separatist Council gone the war is as good as over and with the Jedi all dead, your hold over the galaxy is secured. If you will only train me in this, I will continue to follow you in anything you do! Please, it is the only thing I ask for."

"My dear friend," Sidious says, "if you fear that Senator Amidala is in immediate danger, I will of course place the appropriate guards to protect her."

You shake your head. "No, it is… Padmé is expecting a child, my Master. My… my child. I have seen her dying giving birth in multiple visions. No guard will help her through this!"

"I understand and I cannot say I'm surprised that the senator is your lover."  
"My wife, actually," you admit, trying to make him understand how important this is to you.

"I see. And when is her due date?"

"It is not for another week. But these things are rarely reliable."

"If we wait another week, Grivious will be gone. No, Lord Vader. You must go on this mission. I will make sure that your… wife has plenty of protection and is being kept near a hospital. Nothing will happen to her, I promise. Your mission will only take a few days and you will be back in time to help me save her life."

You bow your head, not entirely satisfied. "As you wish, Master."

So you leave to Grivious' newest hiding place. After Dooku and half a temple full of Jedi, the fight seems ridiculously easy and the General soon lies dead at your feet. When you return only three days have passed and the first thing you do is ask your Master about Padmé because she won't answer her communicator.

"Ah well, I'm afraid a complication has arisen," Sidious laments.

"What's happened? Is she alright?"

"Oh she's perfectly fine, like I promised she would be," he returns. "However… You might not have had time to hear the news but the Republic is now a Galactic Empire and I am its Emperor. She was one of the senators who voted against this change and continued to be quite vocal in her opposition afterwards. I'm afraid some of the things she said publicity have gotten her labeled as a traitor."

You pale. "Where is she?"  
"She's currently being held in custody in the Imperial Base ten miles north of here. Lord Vader, I hope I do not have to tell you that this is a precarious situation. You're the hero of the Empire, the only Jedi to remain loyal and to bring down this traitorous order. For your own sake, you cannot be affiliated with a traitor. You must convince the senator to take her words back and to issue a public apology."

"Of course," you hurry to say. Sidious doesn't speak the threat aloud but you know better than to believe it isn't there.

The base where Padmé is being kept is a military one staffed by clone troopers but they let you pass without trouble, even saluting and asking you if you need anything.

Padmé doesn't look good. There are dark rings under her eyes, eyes that are red and puffy as she's been crying. Dressed in some plain prison clothes, she looks pale and exhausted and her belly looks enormous.

"Padmé," you sigh, relieved that she is at least alive.

Her head turns slowly and her eyes widen. "A-Anakin? You're… You're alive!" She stands up on wobbly legs and comes over to the door.

"Open up," you order the trooper standing guard harshly. He does so without complain, lets you in and locks the door behind you.

You close your arms around your wife immediately.

"Oh Padmé, how could this happen? How did you get yourself arrested?"

She frees herself of your embrace. "How I got myself arrested? How are _you _still alive?! When I heard what happened at the temple… And the _Chancellor _called them all traitors in public!"

"Well, they _did _try to assassinate him. And he's no longer the Chancellor, he's the Emperor now. You can't go around spreading rumors about him."

"Rumors? RUMORS!?" Padmé almost shouts. "He killed off the Jedi. _Your _order! Your brothers and sisters! He killed the Republic, he destroyed democracy, of course I had something to say against that!"

"You don't understand. It's all different now," you try. "The Empire will bring peace, order and security back into the galaxy. The Jedi tried to stop that and they paid the price for their failure. I know that you have strong opinions about democracy but you have to keep them to yourselves. If not for you… Then for our child."

She steps away from you, looking horrified. "You... You're not here to rescue me, are you? The clones let you in… because you support this Empire. You… You betrayed the Jedi."

"The Jedi betrayed the Republic. I'm the only one who stood to his vows!" you protest. "But you're right. I'm not here to rescue you. The only one who can do that is yourself. You have to make an official statement taking back whatever you said about the Empire. Palpatine is not unreasonable and he does favor me. If you only do this small thing you can go."

Padmé's eyes harden. "No."

"Love, don't be silly. This isn't about your stupid pride. You have to think about the child!"

She wavers for a moment. "I am thinking of the child. And so should you! Do you really want our son or daughter to grow up in an Empire?!"

"Why not? It will be safer than the Republic, that's for sure," you return.

She shakes her head. "I… I can't believe it. Ani, I… I barely recognize you anymore. The man I fell in love with would never support Palpatine after everything he's done!"

You bite your lip. "It's… It's the only way to save you, Padmé. I've been having visions… Visions about your death. Palpatine knows a lot about the Force, knowledge that the Jedi don't have. He can help me save you."

"Knowledge that the Jedi don't have…? You mean the dark side, don't you?" Padmé shakes her head vigorously. "No, Anakin. No, don't you dare! Don't you dare use _me_ as an excuse to join this… this monster! I will not stand for it."

"Padmé…"  
"My decision is final. I will not take back a single word about the Emperor and his tyrannical rule."

"Don't be so stupid!" you shout at her. "He's making you an offer to go free!"  
"And you can tell your Emperor to take that offer and stick it where the sun doesn't shine!" she yells right back.

"Fine!"

You motion for the trooper to open the cell and let you out.

"I give you time until the baby is here to rethink your position. After that, you're on your own," you spit and turn on your heel.

Several days pass. Padmé does not rethink her position. Sidious starts teaching you on how to properly feel the Dark Side but you haven't made much progress until the message arrives that Padmé has gone into labor.

She gives birth in an Imperial hospital. You are at her side the entire time and she shouts and curses you. After a few hours you're the proud father of twins and Padmé is fading away. Panicked you call for your new Master and Sidious locks himself in with your frightened and despairing wife for almost two hours. But the Sith Lord does hold his promise and when everything is done Padmé is alive and stable. She doesn't look at you though and when you reach for her in the Force, all you can feel is hatred.

You manage to convince your Master to change her sentence from outright execution to lifelong house arrest. Padmé is stripped of all her positions and sent home to Naboo. Over the coming years you try to contact her sometimes but she has nothing but spite for you and isn't even all that interested in the fate of her children, convinced that being from your seed, they're somehow tainted.

Meanwhile you have your hands full with your new position as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces. There are Jedi to hunt down, Separatist worlds to bring to heel, rebels to sniff out and diapers to change. Once the children are old enough you start teaching them in the dark side of the Force. Since you are so busy most of the time they are mostly taught at the Emperor's academy for inquisitors, where they get enough special treatment to make everyone jealous of them. The fact that they're both Imperial Prince and Princess respectably doesn't exactly help. Both Luke and Leia are very strong in the Force and not exactly stupid either so they quickly climb in ranks. Unfortunately, being away so often means you're not there to prevent Sidious starting to influence the two youths. While Luke is the more powerful twin, Leia shows the most promise in the dark side as she has a fiery temperament and is quick to anger. Her ambitions are also way higher than those of her brother, who secretly just yearns for your praise and love. As such Sidious, who's not too keen on seeing a powerful united Skywalker family deciding he's too old for his position as Sith Master, eventually, convinces Leia to turn against Luke. She kills him with her lightsaber in one of their many matches at the academy, passing it off as an accident. However, you can read the truth in her mind and heart and doubts begin to plague you as the grief over the loss of your son consumes you. All you want is for Leia to be free of Sidious influence and for you to have the means to steer her back in the right direction. You try to convince your Master to let Leia come with you and fight at your side against the rebellion but Sidious thinks Leia would benefit much more learning to navigate the politics of the Empire and keeping the grand Moffs in check. You watch her become more and more like Sidious each year until one day you can't stand it anymore and go to her, demanding she help you kill the Emperor and overthrow him. You could rule the galaxy together as father and daughter!

Leia agrees readily. A bit too readily, you think later when you finally face Sidious and she suddenly turns against you. But even with this betrayal you can't stand the thought of hurting your daughter so you turn your anger against Sidious instead. But your emotions blind you and your hesitancy to fight at full strength when Leia keeps jumping in the way is hindering your offence. In the end, you fall to Sidious' Force lightning. You're barely conscious, lying on the ground, minutes away from death. Sidious gloats about how your sentimentality is your downfall and while he's in the middle of a speech, Leia whips around her lightsaber and beheads the Emperor. There's one precious little second of hope before she comes over to you, smiles sweetly and says:  
"Sorry about this, father. But I don't really like the idea of sharing the galaxy. Not even with you."

"I… I would've given you the throne," you rasp out, defeated. And you would have, you don't particularly enjoy ruling, not when there are still battles to fight.

"Maybe," she allows. "But then again, why take the risk?" The last thing you see his her red lightsaber coming down at your neck.

Under the rule of Empress Leia Skywalker the rebellion is finally wiped out and with two Death Stars all hope of a new one starting up anywhere is quickly crushed.

**END**

**Rating:**

You successfully raised an Empire under Sidious rule and two babies on top of it. They completely embraced the Dark side, too. Good job!

**State of the Galaxy**: Empire (10 DS)

**State of the twins**: Total dark sider (+10DS)

**Martial status**: Well she doesn't like you but on paper, you're still married! (10DS)

**State of the Jedi:** Wiped out (10DS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your daughter (+5DS)

**Cause of death**: Your apprentice killed you. Which is really the best death a Sith can hope for. (10DS)

**Total**: 55/60 Dark Side points. Wow, you were successful. Feeling good?

* * *

**8: You missed the Plot and Obi-Wan is dead**

The Organas welcome you with open arms once you reach Alderaan and are happy to offer refuge, especially when they see the twins. You explain that you've been with Padmé when the attack on the temple started and later browsed the ruin of the temple, finding the twins hidden away in a corner of the temple beneath a broken crib. Padmé helped you flee but you were chased by clone troopers and she got hurt and succumbed to her wounds. You think it best if nobody knows the twins are your children as Palpatine is sure to want to get his hands on them should he ever find out. You're not sure if Bail believes your story but he agrees to help you hide the twins.

That taken care of you contemplate what to do. The last couple of weeks have been littered with failures on your side. You left Obi-Wan, your best friend and brother, to die in order to save a damn politician that turned out to be a freaking Sith Lord. You warned the Jedi Council about that Sith Lord and all it did is get them and pretty much all the other Jedi killed when Palpatine turned out to be more crafty than anyone expected… Except you should've expected it, you've known him almost your whole life! And then… And then you failed Padmé. She's dead now because you were useless once again. Now you have two babies to take care of but just thinking of them makes you shudder because you're pretty certain you're going to fail as a father as well. Palpatine is going to find and kill them or raise them as Sith and it's all going to be your fault because you can't protect them.

No… You won't let that happen. The twins are safer if they're not with you. You have to try to at least make up for some of your failures and you have to do that where you're at your best – the battlefield.

Decision made you leave Alderaan by hijacking a republic (now imperial) ship and return to Coruscant one last time. Just seeing the smoldering ruin of the Jedi temple almost makes you cry, in shame or anger you're not quite sure. You pack up your ship with as much explosives as you can find and then sit down to meditate and locate Palpatine in the Force. It's surprisingly easy. It's like he wants to be found, like he wants you to come to him. Well, that he can have.

You ram your ship right into the senate dome, setting off an explosion big enough to level the whole building and several skyscraper around it.

The death toll is incredible. Later investigations are never quite sure who the suicide bomber was – a separatist, a republic patriot or a Jedi? Fact is that the Empire existed for all but two days before its whole idea was scrapped again. The so-called delegation of 2000 stepped forward and accused the deceased Emperor of prolonging the war just to get more power and with nobody threatening them anymore, the rest of the senate quickly agreed to not try and elect another Emperor.

Unfortunately, that doesn't automatically fix the galaxy.

The war with the Separatists continues. General Grivious assembles what's left of the droid forces and wouldn't you know, without Darth Sidious telling the Republic armies all of his strategies, he actually starts winning battles. Dooku's loss is a heavy blow against the Separatists but losing both General Kenobi and you, the Republic doesn't fare much better.

Five years later the inevitable happens: The Separatists win. Many planets reject the help of the clones, not trusting them after they proved to be mind-controlled by the Emperor and the Jedi… well, the Jedi are all dead.

In the end the Republic has no other choice but to surrender. The separatist divide the spoils amongst them, turning free worlds into colonies.

Separatist rule is terrible. Entire planets get enslaved and exploited; anything that makes money is fair game. A few planetary leaders, including Bail, start forming a rebellion. There is no one enemy to fight though but seven smaller ones, then eight, then twelve as the Confederacy separates into more and more competing entities. Eventually those entities start warring each other for resources and in the resulting chaos and galaxy spanning civil war, the Jedi emerge from the ashes. They come forth as leaders of planetary rebellions, as negotiators in temporary alliances, as heroes of liberation. There is no true leadership anymore, just a general recognition between Force-sensitives wielding lightsabers. None of them ever return to the temple that holds so many painful impressions in the Force and instead rebuild one of the lesser temples on Yavin IV.

Luke and Leia Skywalker get adopted by Bail and Breha Organa and grow up as Prince and Princess of Alderaan. They work in politics to help keep their planet as save as possible from the ongoing war. When they turn 16 years old, their parents tell them about how a Jedi knight named Anakin Skywalker has brought them to them as babies and while they have a strong suspicion that him and Padmé Amidala have been their parents, they don't know for sure. The twins take the news of being adopted well but they both have strong ties to their homeworld and neither of them is much interested in ignoring those in favor of seeking out the Jedi and learning about their origins.

Leia never crosses paths with any smugglers, though she does eventually marry a nobleman from Alderaan who can serve as her prince consort when she takes over as queen for her mother. As Aderaan is traditionally ruled by females, Luke has no such responsibilities but he does become a diplomat in service of his planet.

The civil war eventually – after more than 50 years of warfare - reaches a sort of end after four big alliances form, dividing the galaxy. One is calling itself the New Republic, trying to follow the example of democracy and freedom, one is the free-for-all Hutt space controlled by various crime syndicates and Hutt families, one is the Confederacy in which basically money rules all and one is under the control of some obscure group called the First Order, who seem to try and emulate Palpatine's ideas.

The peace lasts for all but two years before weapons of mass destructions show up on the galactic map but that's a mess to clear up for another generation.

**END**

**Rating:**

You completely missed the Plot on Empire day, lost the love of your life and made a suicide run to try and make up for it… only to plunge the galaxy into civil war. Wow, you're a failure as a Jedi!

**State of the Galaxy**: Separatist (0LS)

**State of the twins**: Royalty (+7LS)

**Martial status**: Widowed (0LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Slowly recovering from Order 66 (+3LS)

**Sidious status**: You took him down with you (+5LS)

**Cause of death**: You took him down with you (+5LS)

**Total**: 20/60 Light Side points. Ugh. Wanna try again?

* * *

**9: Obi-Wan is alive.**

The Organas welcome you with open arms once you reach Alderaan and are happy to offer refuge, especially when they see the twins. You explain that you've been with Padmé when the attack on the temple started and later browsed the ruin of the temple, finding the twins hidden away in a corner of the temple beneath a broken crib. Padmé helped you flee but you were chased by clone troopers and she got hurt and succumbed to her wounds. You think it best if nobody knows the twins are your children as Palpatine is sure to want to get his hands on them should he ever find out. You're not sure if Bail believes your story but he makes no attempt to separate you from the twins and instead helps you set up a fake identity and lends you some money to buy a small house in a remote location on Alderaan.

For the next couple of months, the only source of information you have is the Imperial News Channel. Obi-Wan's death was never confirmed, which is a huge relief to you. One day he turns up on your doorstep. Apparently he's been in contact with a few influential people to start building up a help network for Jedi who managed to escape the purge as well as forming a resistance to the increasingly tyrannical new laws and regulations the Emperor is implementing. You are hesitant to engage in such activities at first. Your face is right up there on the list of top wanted Jedi generals, to the point where you don't go out in public anymore without some sort of disguise. However you can clearly see that some of the new regulations you hear of are more than worrying. The Emperor is snatching up Force sensitive children to do who-knows-what with them, including many of the Jedi rejects. He's working with crime Lords such as Jabba the Hutt and the new system of Moffs and Grand Moffs doesn't look any less corrupt to you than what was in place during the Republic. The new positions favor the ambitious and back-stabbing and those most sycophantic to the Emperor rather than the ones with the most money but nowhere do you see any true dedication to the people they're supposed to rule. In the end, you do agree to look into this 'rebellion thingy' Obi-Wan keeps mentioning. The twins are given to a maid in the palace of Alderaan to care for and Bail promises to make sure they always have everything they need.

Once you actively enter the fray, the Empire reveals much more of its ugly sides. Labor camps, the enslavement of entire races, torture of prisoners, the fear, the despair, the general darkening of the entire Living Force - it is not a galaxy you want your children to grow up in.

It's like the Clone Wars all over again. You regret deeply how little time you can spend with your children but at least this time you fight for something you can believe in and when you return to them for a week or so per month, the little ones look at you with hero-worship.

Four years pass like this. Once again you're the face of a war effort, this time for the Rebellion. Having the Hero-without-fear join them catapults their morale up into the sky. You insist that one of the first planets captured by the rebellion as soon as they have a small fleet is Kamino, where you put pressure on the locals until they help you develop a virus that will corrupt the clone's biochips and turn them from slaves back into sentient beings. The results is a mass desertion of the Imperial forces as only a small part had been replaced by normal recruits by that point. This victory helps to turn the tide of the war. A year later you have enough of an attack force to target Imperial center and together with Obi-Wan you infiltrate the palace and fight Darth Sidious in an epic lightsaber battle in which he totally fails to draw you to the dark side and ultimately loses his head to your lightsaber.

The Empire is toppled soon after and three months later the New Republic is declared.

Several dozen Jedi start coming out of hiding bit by bit. The order is being started up again, albeit with much reconstruction necessitated to the smaller member count. Nobody really cares if have children, for example. You refuse any sort of leading role in the new order but Obi-Wan becomes the new Grandmaster since Yoda's mental health took too much of a beating with the loss of so many Jedi and he chose to remain in exile. You do let yourself be pressured into the position of Councilor though and decades later after Obi-Wan resigns during to old age, you take his post.

Your children are one of the first new initiates welcomed into the New Order and you make sure that they understand that love is a strength, not a weakness. Losing Padmé was the worst thing that ever happened to you but you did get over it eventually and if forced to choose again, you would always choose a path that lead to you being together with her. They do understand and they don't try to deny the sibling bond that connects them, though neither of them founds a family on their own.

(Decades later, long after you're gone, the First Order minus one angsty teen starts up a ruckus. But that is a story for another fanfiction.)

**END**

**Rating:**

You completely missed the Plot on Empire day and lost the love of your life but at least you pulled your head out of the sand long enough to battle the Empire properly afterwards.

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic, though you had to fight the Empire for a while first (+5LS)

**State of the twins**: Jedi (+7LS)

**Martial status**: Widowed (0LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Slowly recovering from Order 66 (+3LS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10LS)

**Cause of death**: Old Age (+10LS)

**Total**: 35/60 Light Side points. Well, it could be better but it could also be worse.

* * *

**11: The Empire**

Whatever little resistance against the Empire arises is crushed within five years. There simply aren't enough systems willing to stand both against the terrifying might of the Imperial Navy as well as his powerful Commander. Imperial propaganda is doing a great job keeping up your image as a hero, swiping all the less favorable activities under the rug. Fifteen years later a giant battle station with the power to destroy planets is completed but as long as you live, it is never used, just kept the back as a hidden ace to combat a threat that never comes. Meanwhile you turn the navy against the Outer Rim and the Hutt syndicate, making good on your promise to eradicate slavery. It has taken some convincing to get Sidious to agree to that as he thinks slavery a good way to gain cheap work force but eventually you convince him that the good press will be far more effective in preventing another rebellion from rising. As time passes, Sidious grows more and more paranoid and reclusive, as if waiting for you to turn against him. He even starts to send half-trained Force sensitive assassins after you, then later claiming it was just a test and a way to further your training. Not that it matters, you send all of his people back without heads. Sidious starts building more weapons, sponsoring experimental science, investing in secret projects and just generally pumping credits into a military that becomes more and more obsolete with the lack of threats. Eventually a group of Grand Moffs approach you with concerns about the Emperor's sanity. You are more annoyed about it than anything else. Eventually you confront Sidious about his long overdue promise of teaching you how to keep people from dying and not unexpectantly that conversation ends in a lightsaber duel. You win, though it's closer than your're comfortable with. After that declaring yourself as the new Emperor is all but a formality, seeing as you have complete control over the military – and in a military dictatorship, that's half the rent already. In a twist of fate, you end up reinstating the senate and returning democratic values to the Empire out of sheer frustration – you never knew ruling the galaxy came with so much paperwork and you simply can't do all of this alone. Now all you have to do is accept or reject bills and there are enough sycophants in the senate that if you ever want a specific law formed or process started, you have no trouble finding someone to do it for you.

You never see the point in taking on an apprentice on your own and you continue to hate politicians till the day you die and so, when that day finally comes, the lack of a successor results in the position of Emperor simply being replaced with that of an elected Chancellor. And just like that, the rise of an empire and the destruction of the Jedi is nothing but a small bump in the history of the galactic Republic.

END

**Rating:**

You sided with Sidious and helped him raise an Empire all while avoiding to fall into a pit of Lava. You did lose Padmé and the children though so your life became somewhat empty.

**State of the Galaxy**: Empire (as long as you lived, at least) (+10DS)

**State of the twins**: dead (0DS)

**Martial status**: Widowed (0DS)

**State of the Jedi:** Wiped out (+10DS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10DS)

**Cause of death**: Old Age (+10DS)

**Total**: 40/60 Dark Side points. It feels rather alone at the top, doesn't it?

* * *

**12: You left the Jedi and Obi-Wan is still alive.**

You completely miss the end of the war in the hectic few days that follow. Your worries are on changing diapers, reading up on infant development and waking up seven times a night to calm down the twins. Suddenly Obi-Wan is knocking at your door, raising an eyebrow as he sees your exhausted form. It's nice to see him again though you insist that no he absolutely cannot see the twins right now, you just managed to put them to sleep after two hours of constant crying. In fact, if he raises his voice above a whisper you're going to strangle him.

Obi-Wan chuckles at your words but shuts up when you shot him a warning glare.

You exchange news with each other in a relaxed mood after that. Apparently Obi-Wan managed to finally kill General Grivious and the Separatist Council surrendered shortly after. The war is officially over. Padmé is eager to jump on the huge mess that is getting the clones civilian rights, which is the least they deserve after years of faithful service. Obi-Wan is sad to see you gone from the order. He continues to visit occasionally though and once the twins outgrow their sleepless phase, you become a much happier man than you've ever been.

Until the Jedi Order comes with an official offer to let the twins join the Jedi order because of course they're crazy powerful in the Force. Padmé and you discuss it at length and decide against it. You have struggled for your love and your family, you have suffered so much from the Jedi's rule of non-attachment. If you give your children to the Jedi you will never see them again and that simply isn't an option. You're perfectly capable of teaching them all they need to know about the Force on your own, thank you very much.

The order is less than pleased and continued to send knights your way to pester you. The thought of children being taught in the Force outside of their control right in front of their noses is not a happy one for them. They go so far as to advice you to join the Jedi enclave on Dantooine, a group that is more tolerated than supported by the Council because they allow their members to found families of their own. But moving to Dantooine would require you to leave Coruscant and Padmé is far too invested in galactic politics to agree to that. So you stay and you have to admit you start to enjoy annoying the Jedi whenever you can.

Padmé manages to push a sentient rights act through the senate that grants all clones citizenship of the Republic and even gives them a couple of unpopulated worlds filed with dangerous fauna to settle on. In return, they worship the ground she walks on and the fact that she's married to one of their most beloved Generals only adds to their devotion. Rex comes up to you one day as a representative of the entire army and asks if there's anything they can do to show their thanks. Padmé repeatedly tells him there's no need because she only did what was right but Rex isn't to be deterred. The clones don't feel comfortable accepting the planets she's 'gifted' them without at least some way to repay it. Anakin and Padme discuss it at length and in the end tell them:

"Every clone who wants to repay us is to go to the Outer Rim, find a slave, and free them without buying them. Then they are to take care of that slave, help them start a new life and learn what it means to be a free person."

Thus starts what goes down in history as the Rim Rebellion, the private war of the clone army against the Hutt syndicate and other crime cartels to eradicate slavery. The war takes years. When the clones start to suffer from their genetically accelerated aging, the slaves they freed take their place.

Palpatine's position gets filled by Senator Bail Organa and eight years later, after his second term, Padmé fills his shoes. By that time the twins go to a public school and have advanced in their private training with you to the point where they might as well be Padawane. You have two more kids with Padmé, a boy you call Lars in memory of the farmer who freed your mother and a girl they named Cordé after the handmaiden that gave her life to protect Padmé. Leia becomes a politician, later going so far as to advance to Senator of Coruscant. Luke becomes a pilot and joins the Coruscant Security forces, later fights in the Rim Rebellion and eventually becomes a teacher at a piloting academy. Lars makes a career as a professional swoop bike racer and Cordé completes her medical studies. She convinces 'Uncle Obi-Wan' to show her a few Jedi holocrons explaining healing techniques using the Force and eventually becomes known as the galaxy's best non-Jedi doctor. They start forming families of their own and none of them give their children to the Jedi, instead asking you for help in teaching them whenever they don't know the answer to any of their questions.

You die at the age of 95, surrounded by your children, and grandchildren, and great-grand children.

Then you come back as a Force ghost to continue teaching your great-great-grand-children, because why the fuck not?

**END**

**Rating:**

You killed Sidious siding with the Jedi but officially left them at the same time. Order 66 never got triggered because it wasn't a Jedi who killed the Chancellor, Obi-Wan takes care of the Separatists and you get to enjoy a nice, civilian family.

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic (+10LS)

**State of the twins**: Civilian but taught the Force by you (+10LS)

**Martial status**: Happily married! (+10LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Saved (+10LS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10LS)

**Cause of death**: Old Age (+10LS)

**Total**: 60/60 Light Side points. Wow, you managed to get the single most light-sided happy cheesy ending I could come up with. But isn't that kind of boring? Let's go dark side!

* * *

**13: You left the Jedi and Obi-Wan is dead.**

You have avoided falling to the dark side, Padmé and your children are safe and you will never have to deal with the Jedi again. Unfortunately, that doesn't automatically fix the galaxy, however much it feels like it for you.

The war with the Separatists continues. General Grivious assembles what's left of the droid forces and wouldn't you know, without Darth Sidious telling the Republic armies all of his strategies, he actually starts winning battles. Dooku's loss is a heavy blow against the Separatists but losing both General Kenobi and you, the Republic doesn't fare much better. Several times you're tempted to join the fray again. Republic command practically begs you to do so. But you are no longer a Jedi, you're a civilian and they have zero authority over you. The whole point of the clone army is not having any civilians fight after all.

Five years later, you wish you had returned to the front because the unbelievable happens: The Separatists win. The clones get slaughtered and the Republic is too bankrupt to order new ones. The Jedi are spread unbelievably thin and more of them die every day.

In the end the Republic has no other choice but to surrender. The separatist divide the spoils amongst them, turning free worlds into colonies. Your face is very much at the top of their wanted list, as are most of the Jedi. Your family is forced into hiding.

Separatist rule is terrible. Entire planets get enslaved and exploited; anything that makes money is fair game. You get in contact with some of the Jedi scattered around and with the help of Padmé and a few planetary leaders, start forming a rebellion. There is no one enemy to fight though but seven smaller ones, then eight, then twelve as the Confederacy separates into more and more competing entities. Eventually those entities start warring each other for resources and in the resulting chaos and galaxy spanning civil war, the Jedi are the only hope for many. They come forth as leaders of planetary rebellions, as negotiators in temporary alliances, as heroes of liberation. There is no true leadership anymore, just a general recognition between Force-sensitives wielding lightsabers. Certainly none of them care that you have a family.

You gather up what's left of your old clone troops as well as a million of volunteers and start your own movement, fighting against the Separatist hold and any organization that seeks to enslave free beings. There seems to be no end to your enemies. It takes ten years for enough planets to be liberated to form an intergalactic government, named the New Republic. It's barely a fifth of the old Republic's size but bigger than any of the separate interstellar states that have formed from the remains of the Confederacy and thus manages to defend itself well. It is here that the Jedi order finds a new home, building a new temple on Alderaan, which becomes the new capital. You are officially one of them once again. Nobody cares that you love your wife or have two Padawane who are also your children. They are glad for every lightsaber at the front. One planet at a time, you start expanding the New Republic. And then, when it's returned roughly to the same shape it had before the clone wars, you don't stop but push further, into the territory that's been held for hundreds of years by Hutts and other crime bosses.

Grieving for the Republic, Yoda went into hiding early in the war and never came out. One after another, the members of the old Jedi Council die in the never ending battles and you end up leading what's left of the order. The first thing you do is make sure the next generation of Jedi know that love is a strength, not a weakness.

Luke and Leia become great Jedi themselves and by the time the entire galaxy is one free Republic, they are fully fledged knights with their own families and their own Padawane.

Once something resembling peace returns to the galaxy, you finally have more time for Padmé as well. She's busy leading the New Republic in a senate that's much smaller and more effective than the original one. Instead of one senator per planet, planetary leader now get to vote on a party to support and the number of parties gets limited to thirteen. One party elects one senator as a representative who gets one vote that gets weighted as to the percentage of its party members. Every senator can put a bill of their own design to a vote. If it gets accepted by a majority, fine, if not then every senator who opposes the bill has to offer a counter-bill that deals with the same problem. In the next session, all counter bills as well as the original would be put to a vote together and the one with the most votes wins. If several have the same number the losers gets eliminated and the vote gets repeated until they agree on a solution. The odd number of senators ensure that they never waste so much time agreeing on a solution as the old Republic.

The system doesn't work perfectly but better than the old one and with a decisive leadership the war moves much more smoothly. Once peace returns, Padmé has more time for her family as well and you start making weekend trips to cloud nine regularly.

At some point some idiots show up calling themselves the First Order… but they quickly get squashed by the Jedi and the New Republic Forces. They don't even make a footnote in history and are not worth a separate fanfiction.

**END**

**Rating:**

You killed Sidious siding with the Jedi but officially left them at the same time. Order 66 never got triggered because it wasn't a Jedi who killed the Chancellor but everyone forgot about the Separatists and they go and wreck the galaxy. It takes you a while to get the galaxy back in working order again but at least you still have your family.

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic, though you have to fight a prolonged Separatist war first (+5LS)

**State of the twins**: Jedi in a reformed order (+10LS)

**Martial status**: Happily married! (+10LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Saved but probably a bit thinned out by 15 years of civil war (+7LS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10LS)

**Cause of death**: Old Age (+10LS)

**Total**: 52/60 Light Side points. A pretty good ending.

* * *

**14: Listen to Obi-Wan**

„Maybe you're right, Padmé," you say with deceptive calmness. "Maybe we should run away together after all. But I have a feeling _he_ won't let us." With that you nod behind her to the Jedi that is stepping down the ramp of the ship. All the while you watch her reaction very carefully.

Padmé looks relieved initially at your words but then she turns around and pales as she sees Obi-Wan.

She turns to you quickly again. "Anakin, I _swear_ I didn't know he was hiding on the ship!"

You regard her with a steely gaze. You don't know if you can believe her. She looks surprised but mostly scared. It's entirely possible she merely asked Obi-Wan to be allowed to talk to you first before he would come down and try to kill you. But even if she is speaking the truth… You know you are on the verge of losing her. She knows you've killed children and as an expecting mother herself, she won't be able to see the reason in that. From her point of view, it is already amazing that she seems to be willing to forget about it if you stop now. If you go and kill Obi-Wan in front of her now, it may be enough to drive her away forever no matter how justified you are. You could live with that. You could live with her being disappointed in you or even hating you. But if she does that then she won't be willing to remain in your presence and that will make it so much harder to save her life. You know you couldn't go on with her dead. What good is ruling the galaxy and being more powerful than any Jedi ever was if you can't have her at your side? And even if she did betray you and even if it is too late to turn back, there is still the child. If anyone is innocent in all this, it's that child. If you do go with Padmé and you don't get the power to save her because of this and it turns out she planned to betray you all along – as long as you stay near her until she gives birth, you will at least have a chance to take your child with you. It might be a new reason to go on if Padmé has really given up on you.

So you force your eyes to soften and you pull her closer slowly.

"I believe you," you claim and after a short hesitation she relaxes in your arms, resting her head on your shoulder. "I did what I did for you, for us, so we could be together. I'm sorry I never told you. I'm sorry I never asked if that was what you wanted. I still don't think that anything I did was wrong – I was acting on the Chanellor's orders and thus on orders of the Republic. But I see now that I have distressed you and for that I apologize." You push her away a little so you can see into her eyes. "I know we don't always share an opinion, especially when it comes to politics. I love you Padmé and if you think leaving is the best for us then I'm willing to give up on my position and my power for you. If that is what you really want."

"I… I do, Anakin. I… I don't know how you could ever think killing such young Jedi would be justified, even if those were your orders… but I just want everything between us to return to what it was before. The Chancellor knows I would never support his rule, and with how brutal a man he's shown himself to be I believe he will be out for me. I need you with me, to protect me and the baby. But for that we have to leave."

You nod slowly. "Very well. But…" And you turn her around so her back is resting against your chest and she looks at Obi-Wan, who has discarded his outer robe in preparation for battle and has his hand resting on the hilt of his lightsaber at his hip. He regards the two of you warily.

"But I'm afraid I will need your help convincing Obi-Wan to let us go. He looks about ready to cut off my head."

Seeing as he has your attention now, Obi-Wan slowly steps closer. Padmé seems to realize how precarious the situation is or maybe this is part of her plan to convince you of her honesty. Anyway she steps forward, putting herself squarely between you and your former Master.

"Obi-Wan, you shouldn't have hid on the ship! Why have you come?"

"I am sorry Senator. But you saw the security feed, you know what Anakin did. You were the only person I could think of that might now what he was up to now. I had to find him."

"To do what?" you ask aggressively and put a hand on Padmé's shoulder, warning her not to get any closer to the Jedi.

Obi-Wan grimaces as if in pain. "Anakin... you attacked the temple. You killed children! Surely you didn't think you would get away with something so horrendous?"

"I did what I had to do to bring peace to the galaxy" you whisper.

"Peace? What are you talking about? How could killing all the Jedi bring peace? Our order is what upholds the peace in the first place!"

"If that was ever their aim, they have failed quite spectacularly, haven't they?" you retort. "Think about it." You turn to Padmé. "Both of you. Palpatine holds all the political power, both with the Republic and the Separatists. He sent me here to kill their leaders. The war is officially over now. But with the revelation that Palpatine is a Sith Lord, the Jedi would've risen up against him and he never would've let them. We would've ended one war only to be plunged into another. Getting rid of one side before they could garner too much support to start a rebellion was the only way to bring back peace."

"Then why did it have to be the Jedi?" Obi-Wan spats bitterly. "Why couldn't you have killed Palpatine?"

"If I killed Palpatine we never would've found the Separatist leaders and without a strong leader, with only the corrupt and ineffective senate and the strive caused by a Jedi assassinating a Chancellor, the war with the Separatists would've continued on. And that's not even mentioning the clones. Do you know what I found out when I gathered up the 501st to storm the temple? The Chancellor gave them an order, all of the clones, to kill every Jedi. Not just on Coruscant but everywhere. He had a backup plan and nothing I could've done would've stopped it. If I had killed the Chancellor, you can bet your life that he had some measures put in place to have the order carried out regardless, even if it was just to spite a galaxy he was no longer part of. He's manipulated everyone for years. There's no beating him in his own game."

"But...," Padmé spoke up, "you said you could overthrow him if you wanted. That means you must have a plan."

"If I was no Jedi and with the recognition of not only beating back the Jedi rebellion but also wiping out the Separatist leaders, I might have enough influence to convince the senate to put me in charge instead of Palpatine or to choose a representive in a year or two. And if he fights the decision, well, I'm younger and stronger, I could take him on." You brush your fingers over her cheek softly. "It is not too late to do that... I would put you next to me on the throne of the galaxy in a heartbeat if you wanted me to."

"Anakin, listen to yourself!" Obi-Wan shouts at you. "You're a Jedi, you swore alliance to the Republic! To democracy! So have I! You let this Dark Lord twist your mind. If that is the path you chose to follow, I will stop you!"

But you hardly listen to him rant, you only have eyes for Padmé, still waiting for her answer. The young woman takes your face in her hands and looks deep into your eyes. "Listen to me, Anakin. I don't want a throne that big, not if it was brought by bloodshed. I would be unhappy and miserable. All I want is your love and for you to be there to raise our child together with me. Please, stop this now. Come with me to Naboo. My family can help us hide from Palpatine. Let us leave all this behind, I beg you!" There are tears glistering in her eyes and though you are still mistrustful of her motives, her gaze does soften something cold inside of you.

"Very well," you say at last. "If that is what you truly want, I will come with you." You raise your eyes, looking past her over to your former Master. "Unless of course you insist on shedding more blood today."

Obi-Wan hesitates for just a second. "No, of course not," he manages to get out.

"Then let us go," you say and wrap an arm around Padmé's shoulders, leading her up the ramp of the ship. The Jedi hesitates to follow you, which suits you just fine because as soon as you're up the ramp you start lifting it with the Force.

"Wait! Anakin!" Obi-Wan cries out.

"Oh yes, I forgot. You're not coming with," you state coldly. Obi-Wan can take your Jedi fighter and get shot down in it by clones when he fails to identify as Darth Vader for all you care. He is definitely not spending one second longer around your wife though.

The Jedi's attempts at reasoning with you die out as the ramp closes. Padmé bites her lip next to you but doesn't protest, which pleases you greatly.

"I'm going to plot a course to Naboo but we'll have to make a few jumps in between to shake off anyone who might monitor or pursue us. Palpatine will not be pleased with my defection and I won't take any chances when your safety is concerned," you tell your wife. "Go and rest a bit in your quarters. The past hours must've been stressful and stress is bad for the little one."

"Alright," Padmé whispers, then gives you a shy kiss on the lips. "It was the right decision, Ani. You'll see."

When she's gone you go to the cockpit to start up the ship. You plan to get rid of it somewhere in the Outer Rim and replace it with a less conspicuous ship. Naboo might still be a good place to hide, right under the new Emperor's nose so to speak. He's less likely to raid or blockade his own home planet. That would make for a lot of bad press too soon after his ascent to power. However, the place is going to be crawling with troopers and your face is well known thorough the entire galaxy. In the long run, you suppose you could take on work as a freelance bounty hunter, a courier or a hired pilot and get in the habit of wearing a mask or helmet. You should still change your appearance somewhat, like shave your hair or at least dye it. It's something to think about for later.

You're in the middle of hyperspace on your way to a rim world where you plan to dump the ship when the door to the cockpit opens and Padmé stands in front of you, panting heavily. The Force practically vibrates in warning around her and you don't need to see the wetness running down her tights to know that something is wrong.

"Anakin," she says weakly, "I think the baby is coming."

You curse and jump out of your seat. Padmé whimpers as you scoop her up in your arms and carry her back to her quarters, laying her down on her bed. There's no medical equipment onboard this ship save for a small first aid kit and it's going to be hours before you reach your destination. You could drop out and change routes but if you dare land on any other planet but one ruled by criminals, you're likely to get arrested immediately. By now Palpatine will know that you've gone rogue and since he knows about your relationship, he'll definitely keep an eye out for Padmé and her ship.

There's no use. You have to do this on your own.

**Well luckily I know how to heal her with the light side of the Force (Only for users of path J. Go to 16.)**

**Ohmygodohmygodohmygod what do I do?! (Go to 17.)**

* * *

**15: Fight Obi-Wan**

"Liar!"

"No!"

You're with him! You brought him here to kill me!" You reach out with one hand, hatred and anger consuming you. Padme claws at her throat as she's slowly lifted into the air.

"Let her go Anakin!"

Padmé chokes and whispers pleadingly: "Anakin…"

"Let her go," Obi-Wan demands.

You do, letting her crumble to the ground but now your anger is directed at Obi-Wan

"You turned her against me!"

"You have done that yourself."

"You're not taking her from me!"

"Your anger and your lust for power have already done that. You have allowed this dark lord to twist your mind and now you have become the very thing you've sworn to destroy."  
"Don't lecture me Obi-Wan. I see through the lies of the Jedi. I do not fear the dark side as you do. I have brought peace and freedom, justice and security to my new empire."

Obi-Wan kneels to check Padmé's pulse. You know she's still alive, you can feel it.

"Your new empire?" the Jedi repeats slowly.  
"Don't make me kill you," you growl.

"Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic, the democracy!"

"If you're not with me, then you're my enemy."

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." Obi-Wan draws his lightsaber. "I will do what I must."  
You scowl at him. "You will try."

The following duel ends with you in a pool of lava, missing three of your limbs. Sidious later rescues you and fits you out with a life-support suit, then tells you Padmé and the baby died. Later it turned out she actually lived long enough to give birth because you meet your son Luke nineteen years later while defending the Empire's Death Star. Of your daughter you only learn three years after that, when Sidious is torturing your son right in front of you… That's when you realize you're about to lose the last of your family and take Sidious down with you to save Luke. The Empire is crushed soon after and a horrible sequel trilogy makes every fan's life miserable.

**END**

**Rating:**

….congratulation, you've got the canon ending. Why the hell did you read this fanfic!? Go back and chose something else!

**State of the Galaxy**: Empire (+10DS)

**State of the twins**: alive but hating you (+3DS)

**Martial status**: Widowed (0DS)

**State of the Jedi:** Wiped out (+10DS)

**Sidious status**: You took Sidious down with you (+5DS)

**Cause of death**: You took Sidious down with you (+5DS)

**Total**: 33/60 Dark Side points. If you're going to be a Sith, at least put some effort into it, will you?

* * *

**16: You know how to heal Padmé.**

You never got around to learning that Sith technique to keep people form dying but maybe you won't need it. Say about Obi-Wan what you want but he has been useful for one thing. Hopefully the healing lessons he organized for you in the Jedi temple will be enough to save the love of your life. Of course you haven't learned anything specific about how to aid in a birth but you do know how to stem a bleeding and how to supply a patient's strength with your own. Even so, the next couple of hours are almost as trying for you as they are for Padmé. Every time she lets out a scream your soul hurts. Your fear for her draws the dark side to you and it claws at you, making it oh so hard to concentrate on the light of the Force that you need for this. But in between her screams Padmé squeezes your hand and smiles at you and thanks you for being here and somehow, incredibly, that smile is enough to drive back the darkness.

Soon enough the reason for the expected complications of the birth is becoming evident - Padmé isn't having just one child, she's having two. When you finally lift a small, healthy baby boy out of her you think it's all over and you're scared and confused when she won't stop screaming, not to mention her belly is still so large. Then the second head begins to show and it's both parts a relief - finally you know what was always supposed to go 'wrong' with the birth - and part horror because Padmé already looks so weakened from the first birth, how is she to manage a second?

Miraculously, all three of them make it. You pour as much strength into your wife with the Force as you dare. You also think it might've helped that since you had to concentrate so much, you kept a calm mind for Padmé to latch onto instead of freaking out as you might've done if you didn't know how to be useful. By the time you reach your destination, you have two wonderful children, a son and a daughter and Padmé is exhausted but alive. You are very much reluctant to leave them alone for so much as a second so you use the ship's communications relay to request a medic on board who checks on your wife and helps with the afterbirth. Finding a new ship and haggling for a decent price is made more difficult by you refusing to leave the ship but after a couple of hours of searching you manage that too and once Padmé is good enough to walk you take your family and relocate them to a small freighter.

Padmé has never looked more beautiful than when she's nursing the twins with that bright smile on her face. Any doubts about her intention vanish when she directs that smile to you and when you hold your children in your arms you know you made the right decision - you wouldn't exchange the throne of ten galaxies for these two angels. Together you name the little ones Luke and Leia Skywalker and you swear you will be there for them their whole life and nothing is going to stop you from doing so.

Padmé's family welcomes you with open arms once you reach Naboo. Neither of you mention your role in the forming of the new Galactic Empire, they merely believe you're one of the few Jedi who survived the initial purge and are happy to offer refuge, especially when they see the twins. Privately, Padmé and you decide to never speak of what happened in the last few days. Your official story will be that you've been with Padmé when the attack on the temple started and have been in hiding ever since.

For the next couple of months, the only source of information you have is the Imperial News Channel. Obi-Wan's death was never confirmed, in fact he's still being wanted so you suppose he did manage to get off Mustafar. That suspicion is confirmed when one day he turns up on your doorstep. Apparently he's been in contact with a few influential people to start building up a help network for Jedi who managed to escape the purge as well as forming a resistance to the increasingly tyrannical new laws and regulations the Emperor is implementing. You are hesitant to engage in such activities at first. Your face has become one of the most wanted in the galaxy, to the point where you don't go out in public anymore without some sort of disguise. However you have to agree that some of the new regulations you hear of are worrying. The Emperor is snatching up Force sensitive children to do who-knows-what with them, including many of the Jedi rejects. He's still doing absolutely nothing to combat slavery, even working with crime Lords such as Jabba the Hutt and the new system of Moffs and Grand Moffs doesn't look any less corrupt to you than what was in place during the Republic. The new positions favor the ambitious and back-stabbing and those most sycophantic to the Emperor rather than the ones with the most money but nowhere do you see any true dedication to the people they're supposed to rule. It doesn't help that Padmé very much despises the new changes and is very good at grinding you into the dirt with her arguments whenever you try to see something good in them. She actually manages to make you feel guilty about your role in bringing about the Empire, though she never accuses you of anything.

In the end, you do agree to look into this 'rebellion thingy' Obi-Wan keeps mentioning, if only to shut up your wife and because life as a dad in seclusion does get a tiny bit boring.

Once you actively enter the fray, the Empire reveals much more of its ugly sides. Labor camps, the enslavement of entire races, torture of prisoners, the fear, the despair, the general darkening of the entire Living Force - it is not a galaxy you want your children to grow up in.

It's like the Clone Wars all over again. You regret deeply how little time you can spend with your family but at least this time you fight for something you can believe in and when you return to them, the little ones look at you with hero-worship.

Five years pass like this. Eventually the Empire manages to capture Obi-Wan and you on one of your rare missions together. Padmé is part of a rescue mission, having left the children in the care of Bail Organa. It all turns out to be a trap because the Emperor has you all brought before him and delights in showing Padmé and Obi-Wan footage of what you did as Darth Vader. Apparently he was of the mistaken belief that you chose to abandon the Sith on your own after Mustafar and had no idea about Obi-Wan's and Padmé's involvement and that they were very much aware of your dark deeds. Luckily, they both catch on to what the old man plans and pretend to be shocked. Their reactions give you plenty of clues and so you put on a great play together in which you defend your actions. They in turn denounce you and you make an act out of getting 'drawn to the dark side' once again. As soon as the Emperor loosens you Force-dampening restrains and gives you back your weapon so that you can prove your loyalty by killing Obi-Wan, you turn on him and cut off his head instead.

The death of the Emperor does trigger all sorts of alarms and calls forth a small army worth of security personnel but the three of you have been in worse situations. You come out on top this time around too, defying all odds, stealing the Emperor's personal transport (because why the fuck not?) and high-tailing away as fast as you can.

The Empire is toppled soon after by a series of open warfare rebellions on multiple planets and three months later the New Republic is declared. You're once again a war hero, though you make sure to stay away from the press lest someone take too much of an interest and finds out about your less than light past activities.

Several dozen Jedi start coming out of hiding bit by bit. The order is being started up again, albeit with much reconstruction necessitated to the smaller member count. Nobody really cares if you're married or not, for example. You refuse any sort of leading role in the new order but Obi-Wan becomes the new Grandmaster since Yoda's mental health took too much of a beating with the loss of so many Jedi and he chose to remain in exile. You do take up a position as a sort-of Councilor for young Jedi, especially those that have been salvaged from the Emperor's Sith academies. If anyone knows how to recover from a dip in the dark side, it's you.

Your children are one of the first new initiates welcomed into the New Order, though Padmé and you insist that their education gets supplemented with subjects usually taught at public schools so that if they grow up and decide they don't want to be Jedi after all, all opportunities will remain open for them. It becomes the new norm; young children concentrate on using the Force to supplement their existing skills. The study of deeper Force mysteries or lightsaber combat takes up much less time until they're sixteen, at which point they can chose if they want to become Jedi or pursue other interests. Only part of that is at your insistence (as one of only a handful of adult Jedi remaining, your voice now has quite some influence), the other reason is simply that much knowledge about the Force was lost during the purge and there aren't all that many Jedi masters capable of teaching left.

Padmé remains on Coruscant as an advisor for the newest Senator of Naboo, which gives her more time with her family. You all come together on weekends as well as the occasional holiday and when time allows it, sneak in a visit in the evening. The fact that you no longer have to keep your relationship a secret is a load off both your shoulders. One year after the fall of the Empire, your third child is born, a lively boy you call Lars in honor of the loving farmer who freed your mother from slavery - and also to keep with the theme of baby names starting with L. All three of your children turn out to be very strong in the Force. Luke very much enjoys life as a Jedi while Leia, despite showing obvious talent with the Force, drops out to follow in her mother's footsteps and become a politician instead, eventually rising as high as Senator of Coruscant. Lars too can use the Force but is a lot more specific in his talents than Luke and eventually decides to drop the Jedi career in favor of becoming a professional racer. All three of them make you incredibly proud. For as long as you live, you never have a vision about a family member dying again.

(Decades later, long after you're gone, the First Order starts up a ruckus. But that is a story for another fanfiction.)

**END**

**Rating:**

You've missed the canon ending by a hair's length, choosing to listen to Obi-Wan and Padmé and turn your back on the dark side at the last possible moment. You end up a Rebel-hero with a dark past and a wonderful family.

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic, though you had to fight the Empire for some time (+5LS)

**State of the twins**: Free to do whatever and loving you. (+10LS)

**Martial status**: Happily Married. (+10LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Slowly recovering from Order 66 (+3LS)

**Sidious status**: Death by your lightsaber (+10LS)

**Cause of death**: Old Age (+10LS)

**Total**: 48/60 Light Side points. It's good but it could have been better if you hadn't taken so damn long to decide.

* * *

**17: You have no idea what to do.**

You never got around to learning that Sith technique to keep people from dying and without it, you feel you're really screwed right about now. Panic settles in. You don't know anything about how to aid in a birth. Was there something about warm water and towels? But what are those for?

You try to talk to Padmé, keep her calm but every time she lets out a scream your soul hurts. Then it gets from bad to worse. The reason for the expected complications of the birth is becoming evident - Padmé isn't having just one child, she's having two. When you finally lift a small, healthy baby boy out of her you think it's all over and you're scared and confused when she won't stop screaming, not to mention her belly is still so large. Then the second head begins to show and it's both parts a relief - finally you know what was always supposed to go 'wrong' with the birth - and part horror because Padmé already looks so weakened from the first birth, how is she to manage a second?

As it turns out, she doesn't. You feel so useless as you sit by her side, crying and begging her not to leave you even as you watch her strength wane. She's fighting, you can tell she is but birthing two very powerful Force-sensitives unaided has left her weak and bleeding out and _you just don't know what to do._

By the time you reach your destination, you have two wailing children, a son and a daughter and Padmé is dead.

Any doubts you may have had about her intentions bringing Obi-Wan with her to Mustafar become meaningless in the face of her demise. She was your wife, you loved her and now she's dead.

The two babies are the only reason you don't contemplate joining her. For a moment you consider going back and reporting to Palpatine. If you take back your place as Darth Vader, your children could one day rule the galaxy. But then you look at the round little faces and realize how foolish that thought is. The two need someone to take care of them every hour of the day. You can't be that someone if you're off doing Sith business and you wouldn't entrust the job to anyone else. Besides, you want your children to grow up knowing their father. Not like you did.

The ship you're in is still conspicuous. You don't dare leave the twins alone but using the communication system of the ship you arrange to sell it, organize for a transport of Padmé's body to her family on Naboo to be given a proper funeral and buy an old freighter and a nanny droid. You think frantically about where to go next, where to hide. Without Padmé you're not comfortable going to the Naberries. You have few friends that aren't Jedi or clones and none powerful enough to hide your family.

Well, you don't but Padmé does. She's on good terms with many senators that oppose Palpatine. Mon Mothma comes to mind as well as Bail Organa. They know you as a war hero and you could pass the children off as some Jedi initiates you rescued from the temple to avoid questions. Yes, that might work. You decide to go to Alderaan as you remember Padme mentioning that the Organas are trying for children, they would be more sympathetic and likely to help.

The Organas welcome you with open arms once you reach Alderaan. You never mention your role in the forming of the new Galactic Empire, they merely believe you're one of the few Jedi who survived the initial purge and are happy to offer refuge, especially when they see the twins. Your official story is that you've been with Padmé when the attack on the temple started and later browsed the ruin of the temple, finding the twins hidden away in a corner of the temple beneath a broken crib. Padmé helped you flee but you were chased by clone troopers and she got hurt and succumbed to her wounds. You think it best if nobody knows the twins are your children as Palpatine is sure to want to get his hands on them should he ever find out. You're not sure if Bail believes your story but he makes no attempt to separate you from the twins and instead helps you set up a fake identity and lends you some money to buy a small house in a remote location on Alderaan.

For the next couple of months, the only source of information you have is the Imperial News Channel. Obi-Wan's death was never confirmed, in fact he's still being wanted so you suppose he did manage to get off Mustafar. That suspicion is confirmed when one day he turns up on your doorstep. Apparently he's been in contact with a few influential people to start building up a help network for Jedi who managed to escape the purge as well as forming a resistance to the increasingly tyrannical new laws and regulations the Emperor is implementing. You are hesitant to engage in such activities at first. Your face has become one of the most wanted in the galaxy, to the point where you don't go out in public anymore without some sort of disguise. However you have to agree that some of the new regulations you hear of are worrying. The Emperor is snatching up Force sensitive children to do who-knows-what with them, including many of the Jedi rejects. He's still doing absolutely nothing to combat slavery, even working with crime Lords such as Jabba the Hutt and the new system of Moffs and Grand Moffs doesn't look any less corrupt to you than what was in place during the Republic. The new positions favor the ambitious and back-stabbing and those most sycophantic to the Emperor rather than the ones with the most money but nowhere do you see any true dedication to the people they're supposed to rule.

In the end, you do agree to look into this 'rebellion thingy' Obi-Wan keeps mentioning, if only to get him to leave you alone and away from your young impressionable children and because life as a dad in seclusion does get a tiny bit boring. The twins are given to a maid in the palace of Alderaan to care for and Bail promises to make sure they always have everything they need.

Once you actively enter the fray, the Empire reveals much more of its ugly sides. Labor camps, the enslavement of entire races, torture of prisoners, the fear, the despair, the general darkening of the entire Living Force - it is not a galaxy you want your children to grow up in.

It's like the Clone Wars all over again. You regret deeply how little time you can spend with your family but at least this time you fight for something you can believe in and when you return to them for a week or so per month, the little ones look at you with hero-worship.

Eight years pass like this. There's no end in sight to this war and your efforts to combat it become more and more desperate. You never quite manage to make peace with Obi-Wan and refuse to work together directly with him. Padmé's death has made you colder and more reckless at the same time. As such, it is only a matter of time until one day, you don't return from a mission.

After your death, Luke and Leia do not stay much longer with Bail Organa and his wife Breha. You were only able to give them some rudimentary pointers to the Force but they are always eager to learn so when Obi-Wan returns and offers to take up their training they're eager to agree and follow in their father's footsteps. They think you a hero for fighting the evil Empire.

Many years later the twins have their first official mission as Jedi and members of the Rebellion. Leia succeeds in smuggling the plans for the technological monstrosity they call the Death Star away from the rebel fleet. She passes herself off as a traveling diplomat to the Imperials searching her ship while hiding the dataship with the plans in the practically un-hackable little astromech R2D2 in her service. The stupid Imps never care to look there and let her go. She meets up with her twin brother Luke, who rejoins the Rebel fleet and ultimately is the one to fire the shot that destroys the Death Star.

That is not the end of it though since three years later, it is revealed the Empire just build a new one and soon the Emperor is expected for a visit there. The Rebellion assembles once again, however the whole affair turns out to be a trap.

Luckily Leia's talent as a Jedi lies in battle meditation so she's able to combat the Emperor's influence during the resulting space battle. Not so luckily, Luke gets captured on the moon of Endor, trying to deactivate the shield reactor. He does complete his mission but is brought before the Emperor, who of course by now has found out whose son he is. The old Sith then reveals to him the truth about his father – that the hero Anakin Skywalker used to be called Darth Vader, for however short it may have been and that he was substantial in bringing about the Empire in the first place when he lead the attack on the Jedi temple. Coupled with the fact that it turns out the Emperor made sure to execute you personally in order to punish you for your betrayal and Luke is overwhelmed with feelings of anger, despair and betrayal. Those feelings bring him dangerously close to the dark side and Palpatine has great aspirations about making him his next apprentice.

However, in his greed to secure the young Skywalker, he neglected to dedicate enough concentration on his own battle meditation to combat Leia's. A ship of the rebel fleet makes a daring suicide run right into the Death Star's core and the whole thing goes up in flames, taking Luke and the Emperor with it.

After their great victory, the Rebellion manages to topple the Empire and declare a New Republic.

In her grief over her brother's loss, Leia Skywalker distances herself from everyone, including her teacher Obi-Wan Kenobi. For as long as she lives, she refuses to take on any students and Obi-Wan and Yoda by now are too old to teach anymore. As such, Leia grows old alone and dies as the last Jedi.

Decades later, long after you're gone, the First Order starts up a ruckus (albeit without the addition of a black haired angsty teen). But that is a story for another fanfiction.

**END**

**Rating:**

You've missed the canon ending by a hair's length, choosing to listen to Obi-Wan and Padmé and turn your back on the dark side at the last possible moment. You end up losing Padmé anyway and are not very motivated in fighting the Empire, which eventually your children have to pay the price for.

**State of the Galaxy**: Republic, though it's not really thanks to you (+3LS)

**State of the twins**: One Fallen and dead, one depressed. (+3LS)

**Martial status**: Widowed. (0LS)

**State of the Jedi:** Wiped out (0LS)

**Sidious status**: Blown up by the Rebellion long after you're gone (0LS)

**Cause of death**: Died offscreen in some random mission (0LS)

**Total**: 6/60 Light Side points. Congrats, this is the shittiest Light side Ending I came up with.

* * *

AN: Well, this is it! You explored all the many fates of Anakin Skywalker. Or at least you explored one, you may go back now and chose a different one if you like! Please feel free to comment, tell me what ending you got, if you liked it or not and whether you went back to chose differently. Did any of my twists and turns surprise you? Did you explore the dark side or just go goodie two shoes? Let me know!


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